Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Marco  Pozzuolo

Infosys Bpm Limited

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997

CA-00068205-001

18/12/2024

The complainant gave his evidence on affirmation.

He had requested a day of annual leave more than a week ahead of the date on which he wished to take it. He did not get a reply either way.

The day before he wished to take the leave, he told his Team Leader that, as he had not received any answer to the application for leave, he considered it to have been approved.

The following day he received a call from his direct team leader, wondering why he was not at work that day.

After explaining what happened the day before, the Team Leader said that the complainant’s action was understandable, and he was waiting for him when he returned to work.

Following this he was invited to called to sign/acknowledge a document stating that his actions had caused “critical harm to the business” and “it may result in further disciplinary action.”

He considers what happened to have been a warning, but he did not sign it.

 By way of a preliminary matter the complainant was asked to clarify the nature of his complaint of penalisation.

He defined the unlawful action for which he was penalised as the failure to respond to his request for annual leave. He said that the act of penalisation was the warning which he says was given to him.

On the preliminary point the respondent submitted that there had been no act of penalisation; specifically, there had been no formal warning issued to him as alleged following what was described as a ‘documented conversation’ following his absence.

The respondent further submitted that the failure to respond to his annual leave request, while regrettable, was not an unlawful act.

The complainant also failed to raise an internal grievance about the matter and the first time it became aware of the complaint was when the WRC notified it that it had been made.

The complainant requested a postponement of the hearing as he said he had not had the opportunity to take legal advice on his complaint.

The complaint had been referred to the WRC on December 12th, 2024, just over five months earlier and on the basis that he had ample opportunity to do so the request for the postponement was refused.

The complainant reached the rather presumptuous conclusion that the absence of a reply to his request for annual leave signaled that there was no objection to it. He took no steps to confirm this either way, and he may consider himself fortunate that the follow up process did not result in a disciplinary sanction.

But the closest it came to a disciplinary sanction was in his own mind. As he stated on the WRC Complaint Form and referred to above, he was called on only ‘to sign/acknowledge a document stating that [his] actions had caused “critical harm to the business.”

He was told that “it may result in further disciplinary action” but it did not.

His complaint under the Organisation of Working Time Act is entirely misconceived. An employee is not entitled to schedule their own leave; this is a matter for the employer, admittedly in consultation with an employee.

But he has failed to make out a prima facie case of a breach of the Act.

 There was no ‘protected act,’ and no act of penalisation. In that regard the complainant falls at both hurdles necessary to ground a case under the Act and his complaint is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above, Complaint CA-00068205-001 is not well-founded

Annual leave, penalisation.