Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Cleaning Operative

A Contract Cleaning Company

Representatives

Niamh Ní Leathlobhair BL

Dermot O’Loughlin, Alpha Employment Representation Services

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00047406-001

30/11/2021

The employer is a building maintenance and cleaning contractor and the worker commenced with them as a cleaning operative on July 21st 2021.  A copy of her contract of employment was submitted at the hearing by the employer.  The worker signed the contract on July 20th and her start date is given as July 19th.  Her end date was stated to be October 18th 2021. 

The worker was assigned to a role as a cleaning operative in a Dublin hospital and, on September 22nd 2021, as she was emptying a waste bin on a ward, she suffered a needle-stick injury.  She was treated by the hospital’s occupational injury department and, following blood tests, no infection was detected.

The worker was out sick for three days after the needle-stick injury.  When she returned to work, she claims that the environment was hostile and that her supervisor asked her to demonstrate the correct way to empty a bin.  On October 6th, she went out sick again due to stress from the needle-stick injury and its aftermath in the workplace.  The following day, she sent a letter of complaint to the site manager.  The site manager asked the worker to attend a meeting on Monday, October 11th to discuss her concerns, but she was out sick.  She remained out sick and could not attend a re-scheduled meeting on Wednesday, October 13th.  She did not respond to a request to attend a meeting on Thursday, October 14th; however, on that day, the site manager phoned the worker and terminated her employment.  She was paid one week’s wages in lieu of notice. 

The worker claims that her dismissal was unfair.  The employer’s position is that she was employed on a fixed-term contract which was due to end on October 18th 2021 and that she was paid until October 22nd.

AT the hearing, the site manager said that he never met the worker and he knew her only from reports from supervisors that she had been occasionally absent.  Referring to the needle stick injury, the site manager said that such injuries are not uncommon.  When a worker is injured, they must report the injury to a supervisor who normally brings them to the emergency department.  The worker is then required to attend the occupational health department in the hospital.  The site manager said that he received the report of the worker’s needle-stick injury on September 22nd and he signed it and sent it to the company’s health and safety officer. 

The site manager said that, when he received the worker’s email of Thursday, October 7th, he arranged to meet her the following Monday, October 11th.  However, he said that the meeting never happened and on Thursday, October 14th, he phoned the worker and told her that her contract had expired and that it wouldn’t be extended.  He said that she was emotional and hung up.  He said that he approved an additional week’s pay for her in lieu of notice.  The site manager said that he terminated the worker’s employment because her contract was for a fixed-term and was due to end on October 18th.  He said that she seemed to be “unhappy with us.”

When she submitted a complaint to the site manager on October 7th 2023, the worker failed to engage with her employer to deal with her complaint, and she did not submit a medical certificate to confirm that she was sick.  When her contract wasn’t renewed, she didn’t contact the employer to appeal against that decision or even to ask for an explanation.  It is my view that the process that ended with the worker’s dismissal, although not perfect, was not unfair and that the imperfection could have been remedied if the worker had pursued her right to appeal.

Aside from this conclusion, it is well established that, before submitting a grievance about any matter to the WRC, to attempt to reach a resolution of the matter quickly and with the least amount of inconvenience to the parties, a worker must exhaust the internal procedures in his or her workplace.  The decision of the Labour Court in the case of Gregory Geoghegan trading as TAPS v a Worker[1] provides guidance on this matter, where the chairman stated,

“The Court is not prepared to insert itself into the procedural process in a situation where the dispute procedures have been bypassed.”

It is regrettable that the worker decided not to pursue her right to a meeting with the site manager before, or even after she was dismissed.  As she has declined the opportunity to persuade her employer to take a different course of action, I have no role in resolving the matter at this stage.

I recommend that the employer takes no further action with regard to this dispute.

Dismissal, failure to pursue appeal