Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Antonio  Inzulza Pérez

VGL Support Services Ireland Ltd

Representatives

  Self represented

Siobhan Lafferty LK Sheilds

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00066415-001

02/10/2024

The Complainant brought a complaint under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 that he was not provided with free training in contravention of the Act . The complaint submitted was wide ranging and dealt with a number of issues during the Complainants employment.

The Complainant was employed as an SS Representative on October 17th 2022. The Complainant resigned his employment, in a very positive letter, effective November 8th 2024.

No mention of training was in the contract of employment.  The Complainant was suspended for three weeks with pay, accused of breaching GDPR by sharing a ChargeBack Analysis report with the ChargeBack Manager, who had daily access to this information.  The Complainant raised in his submission a number of issues in how he was treated leading up to the suspension. He alleged he was mis treated, required to accept lower level work and breaches of GDPR by the company. He maintained he was never provided with any GDPR training or restrictions regarding his access credentials in his role as Data Analytics.. Despite being a Data Analytics professional, he alleged the company refused to raise his salary in line with migration requirement.

The Complainant sought a full review of the disciplinary process to ensure transparency and fairness, a formal apology for the degrading treatment he alleged he experienced during this process, clarification of internal company policies on data protection and GDPR and mandatory training to prevent future issues.

The Respondents position was they had not breached any section of the Act under which the complaint was made and the complaint was misconceived. The Respondent stated they had no legal obligation under the Act to provide GDPR training.  

The Respondent and Complainant consented at the Hearing to a name change from a trading name to the legal entity name of the Respondent.

The Complainant was employed as a CIRT Co-Ordinator (Data Analytics)  from 17/10/2022 to 25/10/2024, effective November 8th 2024, when he resigned his position. The Complainant gave evidence under affirmation with the assistance of an Interpreter.  He was asked to set out what specific breach of the Act had taken place and he advised he should have got training when he changed jobs, training about GDPR requirements  and he was dissatisfied with the overall  treatment he received while employed by the Respondent. The Complainant did not specify any exact breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act in his evidence but focused mainly on the lack of GDPR and other training not provided. The Complainant was informed at the Hearing, by the Adjudicator, that he had only brought a claim under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act and that the Adjudicator had no legal jurisdiction to deal with any other matters that the Complainant wished to address that did not come within the scope of that Act. The Complainant was not content with this information.

With regard to the specific complaint, Section 3 of the Act now requires that a written statement of main terms is provided to an Employee within 1 month (previously 2 months)  of the commencement of employment. A new section, Section 3.11, was inserted into the Act on December 16th 2022 as a result of the European Union (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations 2022, S.I. No. 686 of 2022. Section 3.11 states that the following must be provided to an employee in his contract “the training entitlement, if any, provided by the employer,” On considering the Complainant submission,  not identifying a specific breach of the Act and his oral evidence I have concluded that this was the only possible Section in the Act that the complaint could have been considered under. As the Complainant commenced employment before the effective date of Section 3.11 it does not apply to him and therefore his complaint that any training entitlement, if any,  was not specified in writing in his contract is not a valid complaint under the Act.

 I find that the Respondent has not breached the Act and find the complaint to be not well founded.

Terms of employment