Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Beauty Therapist

An Employer

Representatives

 Peninsula

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

IR - SC - 00001962

08/11/2023

The complainant did not attend the hearing.  

Submissions were received from her on the day before the hearing and she was in contact with the WRC on the day of the hearing saying she would be replying to the respondent’s submissions within fourteen days.

Then, in correspondence with the WRC on May 17th (the day after the hearing) she stated that she had been in Romania undergoing medical treatment and apologised for the misunderstanding over the date.

The respondent attended the hearing and had raised a preliminary issue to the effect that the complainant had brought her claim without exhausting the specific internal procedures available to her, which is a requirement of referrals under this legislation.

While on certified sick leave, she forwarded a 125-page grievance to the respondent by correspondence dated 27th October 2023, received by the company on 1st of November 2023.

However, she forwarded her complaint to the WRC a mere eight days later.

For a short time, the complainant who was on period of certified sick leave was not contacted directly by the respondent bearing in mind comments from her regarding her significant medical issues, including stress.

Communication and correspondence was effected between the representative for the complainant and the respondent in an effort to address the matter.

An investigation has commenced that is ongoing. However, the respondent says that the complainant has acted prematurely in forwarding her detailed and lengthy complaint in circumstances where the respondent could not interview her as part of an investigation.

(The respondent referred to the various case law on the above point which it is not necessary to report due to the failure of the complainant to attend and to present her case.)

The complainant did not attend the hearing. She submitted a number of emails after the hearing offering an explanation for why she had missed the notice of the hearing.

While the explanation included a reference to a trip to Romania for medical treatment there was no indication that the treatment or her medical condition was a contributory factor to what she described as a ‘misunderstanding’ over the date. She could have requested a postponement, or an online hearing, for example.

She clearly had access to email as she made a submission on the case on May 14th in response to the respondent’s submission.

In the submissions received on the day before the hearing and on the day of the hearing she was in contact with the WRC saying she would be replying to the respondent’s submissions within fourteen days.

From this it appears that she simply overlooked the date of the hearing and the explanations she has provided are insufficient to justify the re-scheduling of the hearing especially in the light of what follows.

Although the complainant has failed to attend a hearing to present her case, I have set out the relevant part of the respondent’s submission which deals with the requirement that falls on a complainant to exhaust internal workplace mechanisms before a reference to the WRC.

In this case the complaint was referred to the WRC about a week after it was raised with the respondent. This fact is not in dispute.

It is hard to imagine any circumstances in which an Adjudicator would entertain a complaint under this Act on such facts, although as the complainant has not submitted any argument on that point, I am not required to reach any conclusions on it in this case.

Her submission received the day before the hearing betrayed a very serious misunderstanding of the parameters of a WRC investigation under this legislation.

A complainant is expected in the absence of seriously extenuating circumstances to attend a hearing to present her case. I am satisfied that she was sent the usual notice to the address she supplied, and that the explanation she has offered does not provide sufficient grounds to excuse her non-attendance.

In the circumstances, her complaint is not upheld, and she will be required to fully process it at the level of the workplace before it can be considered by the WRC.

Use of workplace procedures.