Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Electrician

Employer

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act

CA-00063510-001

16/05/2024

This matter was heard by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and SI 359/2020 which said instrument designates the Workplace Relations Commission as a body empowered to hold remote hearings pursuant to Section 31 of the Principal Act. The said remote hearing was set up and hosted by an appointed member of the WRC administrative staff. I am satisfied that no party was prejudiced by having this hearing conducted remotely.  I am also satisfied that I was in a position to fully exercise my function and I made all relevant inquiries in the usual way.

As the within matter is a dispute between parties and brought before the WRC using the Industrial Relations Acts it was heard in private and the recommendation is anonymized.

The Specific Details of the Dispute are outlined in the Workplace Relations Complaint Form which was received by the WRC on the 5th of April 2023.

The Complainant was not represented and made his own case. The Complainant relied on the submission outlined in the Workplace Relations Complaint Form in support of his case which reads:

“Since the 2/04/2024 until the 14/05/2024 I have been the victim of targeted harassment from a fellow co-worker one of these incidents ended up in me receiving multiple electric shocks because my co-worker refused to isolate a circuit, I was working on stating that I should isolate it myself, which I could have done. But he was the responsible person on site and was tasked with isolating circuits when requested. Several other incidents involved derogatory comments made in person about my skills as a qualified electrician and maybe I should quit the job because I won’t pass the probation, one incident of being threatened by the same co-worker to be blacklisted as an electrician, another threat of violence because he had received an electric shock and he blamed me for turning the power back on which is not in my duty requirement. all of these incidents were reported in house to my immediate superior to hopefully be dealt with internally via internal disciplinary action, this never seemed to happen as the workplace environment continued to get worse until I was forced to decide that the workplace environment was no longer safe for my person and my mental well-being this has unfortunately left me in a difficult financial situation which I now have to rectify”

The Complainant alleges that he was Unfairly Dismissed by way of Constructive Dismissal which came into effect when he wrote a letter to his Employer (Line Manager BJ) on the 15th of May 2024.

Where it also became necessary, I explained how the Adjudication process operated with particular emphasis on the burden of proof which had to be attained by the Complainant in the first instance.

Where I deemed it necessary, I made my own inquiries so as to better understand the facts of the case and in fulfilment of my duties as prescribed by Statute. 

The Respondent had legal representation at this hearing. In addition, a number of senior members of staff attended the hearing and the HR Specialist Ms TP gave evidence on behalf of the Respondent. The Respondent provided me with a written submissions dated December 4th, 2024. No objection was raised in connection with any of the documentary evidence relied upon by the Respondent in the course of making its case.

The Respondent rejects that there has been a Constructive Dismissal and does not accept the Complainant utilised any of the in-house mechanisms whereby any difficulties he was experiencing could be dealt with.

Where I deemed it necessary, I made my own inquiries so as to better understand the facts of the case and in fulfilment of my duties as prescribed by Statute.

I have carefully considered the evidence adduced in the course of this hearing. The Complainant is a fully trained electrician having served a full apprenticeship before becoming qualified in 2019. I understand from him, that the Complainant has worked both as an employee and in a self-employed capacity in the course of his career to date. The Complainant confirmed that he was aware of his Contract of Employment and had had sight of this and was aware of the Company Handbook from the commencement of his employment. This is important because this is a company that employs up to 3,000 staff. There is therefore a busy and engaged HR Department which fact ought to have been known and understood by the Complainant.

The Complainant suggested that because he worked nights he could not as readily communicate with the staff in HR who he presumably believed to be working between the hours of 9 to 5. I do not accept that this is an acceptable reason for not engaging with HR in circumstances where an email to the HR Department would be responded to in the ordinary way had one been sent. To my mind, this lack of engagement mitigates against the Complainant.

In any event the Complainant was engaged as an electrician by the Respondent Company in February of 2024. He worked the night shift and somewhere along the way he and the Site Supervisor, wherein he worked, started to clash. There were various different incidents which the Complainant has spoken of since the employment ended though, crucially, there are no records of these matters being mentioned prior to the end of the employment. One incident is particularly serious. On a date unknown, the Complainant blamed the said colleague for allowing the Complainant receive a nasty electric shock which caused him an injury when he fell to the floor. There is no accident report form or contemporaneous notification of this incident. Management is unaware of this incident ever having happened. This is a mater of some concern for a company which takes Health and Safety issues very seriously.

It seems to be generally agreed that the Complainant must have said something to his Line Manger BJ about the sparring between the Complainant and his colleague. The said Line Manager was not available to give evidence as he has now left the Company. The Complainant says that he understood that the Line Manager would raise a formal Grievance on his behalf. It should be noted that this seems to me to be an unusual way to trigger a Grievance procedure. The normal procedure would be for the person with the Grievance to raise a formal Grievance in writing. The Line Manager BJ would certainly have been obliged to point the Complainant in the direction of the Handbook or the HR Department had an issue been raised. It is unclear if the Complainant and his Line Manager were at cross-purposes on how the matter was to be dealt as the Line Manager is unavailable to give evidence. If no formal Grievance was raised, can I assume the Line Manger was trying to sort the issue out locally?

The HR witness who spoke to these issues said that she understood (after the resignation) that the Line Manager had been dealing with the issue locally. However, as I noted, this witness confirmed that her understanding came form a conversation she had with the Line Manager after the Complainant had resigned and this HR witness had no knowledge that the Complainant was having an issue with his co-colleague prior to the resignation.

The resignation which came from the Complainant came in the format of a letter attached to an email dated the 15th of May 2024 from the complainant and which was emailed to the Line Manager. The letter reads:

To whom it may concern

Dear sir/madam

This letter serves as my formal request to hand in my notice resignation of my employment With (The Respondent)  I have been working currently under probation period with this company since February 2024 And I have come to a decision that working continuously on night shift does not suit me at all

 I was originally under the impression that this position would not be a continuous night shift position As I have commitments every Thursday evening but I have been unable to hold up to these commitments

I have learned a lot about LED lighting tracks and emergency lighting systems with your company also I have furthered my skills in car park pole lights and the upgrades And I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing me a chance to further my skills in my chosen electrical trade I wish you continued success and growth as a company And wish you success on finding my replacement

As I am on probation, I am finishing my employment with immediate effect due to the following reasons:

 No fuel card given to me for work vehicle use

 Toxic workplace environment (for the last 5 weeks I have put up with derogatory harassment from a fellow coworker this has included comments made about my skill level, my personal life, my religious rights, my productivity within the company, and how I could be blacklisted as an electrician by said individual).

Unsafe workplace environment When on a job I requested to have a circuit isolated from mains supply as I had to add an additional fitting into the circuit and the strip connectors in use where to small and had eight permanent supply feeds in them and no room for another I asked to have this isolated so I didn’t get an electric shock which I did get four times in a row because my coworker refused to isolate the supply instead stating I’m a qualified electrician I should figure it out myself.

My most recent job is an hour and a half drive away from my accommodation which means I am expected to do a 13 hour shift overnight leaving me exhausted and unable to be a fully focused safe driver on the road to return to my accommodation.

 I also requested the use of my coworkers fuel card as I do not have one for myself I was refused by both coworkers last night which has left me only a small bit of fuel left and as I am resigning my employment I see no further need to put my own money in to fill this car especially when there was supposed to be a means of avoiding putting my hand into my own pocket.

Kind regards  

It is clear from the letter of resignation that the complainant had at the time of his resignation a number of issues with the workplace almost all of which had not been raised with his Line Manager or with HR. Only the one issue of a difficulty with the co-worker had seemingly been raised beforehand with the Line Manager. The Complainant had understood that the Line Manager was to escalate this issue though never made any inquiry as to whether this had been done or not? The Complainant was not able to pinpoint when exactly he asked his Line Manager to escalate the single issue so I cannot be sure if it was two weeks before the resignation or one day before the resignation (as suggested in the attached email).

The point about this is that the Complainant had not formally raised any grievance within the workplace concerning any of the various issues he raises in his letter of resignation. There was therefore no opportunity for the Employer to consider the issues of a toxic workplace, the unsafe workplace environment, the hour and a half drive away from work and the fact of filling his car at his own expense.

That said, I have to note that HR never contacted the Complainant after having had sight of the letter of resignation. I would have thought that best practise when faced with a sudden and unexpected resignation would be to communicate with the resigning party.  I do not know if any such communication might have helped ameliorate the situation, but I think the failure to reach out signifies a lack of concern or interest.

On the other side I would have to note the seeming haste to get a complaint form issued as this happened one day after the letter of resignation was given. The Respondent was therefore barely given an opportunity to consider it’s options. The complaint form identifies the issue with the co-employee as the reason the complainant felt forced to resign.

I note that some months later the Complainant in a submission to the WRC on the 26th of November 2024 made a number of other allegations against his previous Employer which hitherto, had not been mentioned.

The difficulty with the Complainant’s dispute with his previous employer is that he had not at any time prior to his resignation put his Employer on notice of the deep unhappiness he felt in the workplace. I cannot know what efforts his Employer might have gone to to address his issues when they simply were not made aware of them. This is significant, as the Complainant cannot attribute any means of knowledge to the Employer which might have alerted the Employer that the Complainant might reasonably be expected to and be entitled to tender his resignation. The Employer is at a disadvantage and the Complainant cannot exploit that fact. The Complainant was obliged to formally raise some or all of the workplace problems he was experiencing before he could possibly have felt he was entitled to resign. The obligation is and always has been to exhaust the internal Grievance procedures.

Having already articulated my opinion on the merits of the within dispute, I am not finding that this was an Unfair Dismissal by reason of constructive Dismissal and consequently I make no further recommendation.