A sacked scrapyard manager has told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) he never called a female co-worker a c**t but rather spelled the word out.
“It wasn’t in a derogatory way,” the manager told the tribunal on Friday.
The man also claimed his “goose was cooked with the company” before any allegation that he verbally abused the worker ever came up, because he had objected to his bosses putting in CCTV cameras that could record audio.
Bernard McMahon was giving evidence on the fifth day of hearings into his complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the Hammond Lane Metal Co Ltd, where he was employed for 25 years before being dismissed from the €87,000-a-year job as manager of the company’s site in Clondalkin, Dublin 22, in March.
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The female coworker, who gave evidence under the pseudonym Ms A after being granted anonymity by the tribunal on Tuesday, said Mr McMahon asked her: “Do you know how they called you when you started here?” and that she answered: “No.”
“He continued: ‘You was called a c***,’” Ms A said.
Ms A, who came to Ireland for work from another EU state over a decade ago said she “did not know the meaning of this word” and would “Google it”. At that point, Mr McMahon “decided to spell it for me: ‘C-*-*-T’,” she said – adding that the five colleagues and three customers present “all laughed loudly”.
In his evidence, Mr McMahon said Ms A had entered the office and “initiated the laughing and slagging”.
“There was nobody laughing at her. She wasn’t tearful, she wasn’t upset, there was nothing,” he said.
He told the WRC that he only found out Ms A had made a complaint about him alleging he “verbally abused her and harassed her and called her a c***” when the firm’s human resources manager called him six days later for a “wee chat” on December 19th, 2023. He said he became “concerned” when he realised a note-taker was present.
He said he informed the manager, Ken Ewing, at that stage that his exact words were: “Do you know what they called you when you first came into the company? ‘C-*-*-T.’”
“We were laughing and joking, it was all banter, that was it,” he said.
His representative, business consultant Ken Stafford, asked: “Did you personally ever call [Ms A] the word?”
“Never called her the word,” Mr McMahon said.
He said that following the meeting with Mr Ewing and the note-taker, Chris Campbell, the men “escorted” him down the stairs and into the office and had him change his clothes “in front of customers and staff”.
Mr McMahon said that at an earlier point he had complained to the owners of the company about a new CCTV system being installed which, unknown to staff, had audio recording capabilities. He said it was “being used to watch people” and that he went as far as saying he would report the matter to the Data Protection Commission before it was removed.
“That moment I felt, hand on heart, my goose was cooked with the company,” he said.
Katherine McVeigh BL, appearing for the employer instructed by Eversheds Sutherland, said the allegation ought to have been put to some of her witnesses over the preceding four days of hearing for their response.
Mr McMahon was suspended on full pay from December 19th, 2023 until the time of his dismissal in March this year. The tribunal heard evidence on a disciplinary and appeals process and other matters from a series of company witnesses on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.
The process was suspended for a time when Mr McMahon was signed off work due to stress and anxiety, the tribunal heard.
Mr McMahon said he believed HR practitioners engaged by the company had “colluded” on the process leading to his termination. When Ms McVeigh put it to him that he had not told them at the time that he believed them to be “biased”, Mr McMahon replied that it only became apparent “at the end of that process”.
He also said witnesses in the office “should have been called” by the company investigation.
Ms McVeigh put it to him that he knew “exactly the specifics of the allegations” and Mr McMahon agreed. When Ms McVeigh said he was on notice of the “exact words” he was alleged to have used, Mr McMahon said: “I did not say; ‘You were called a c***’.”
“It was alleged I had an altercation with [Ms A]. I never abused her. They alleged I called her a c***. I never called her a c*** – I spelt it. It wasn’t in a derogatory way,” he said.
When Ms McVeigh asked Mr McMahon whether “sitting in the disciplinary meeting and saying nothing” might have contributed to his dismissal, he replied that the disciplinary officer “was working for the company” and that it “wasn’t going to win anything for me, saying anything”.
“In hindsight, saying ‘It was all a big joke’, do you think it might have helped?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” the complainant replied.
“You’re the author of your own misfortune, Mr McMahon,” counsel said.
“Well, that’s your opinion,” the complainant replied.
He said he had signed up with a recruitment agency and made applications for seven jobs in the scrap metal trade to no avail. He also said he had made phone calls to some 50 contacts he had in the industry since his dismissal inquiring about work.
“They all know that I was marched off a premises. A lot of them rang me to tell me they thought I robbed the premises because of the way I was marched down [to the office] and made to change,” he said.
Ms McVeigh argued in a closing submission that the company had “followed fair procedure throughout” and that the complainant side had been “unable to point out any breach” of either the company’s own internal procedures or the statutory code of conduct on disciplinary processes.
Mr Stafford, for the complainant, took issue with aspects of the disciplinary process and said the seriousness of the complaint was “grossly overstated”.
“This was a few seconds on one occasion in a long period, and Bernard has a different slant on how it came about,” Mr Stafford said. “There’s an awful lot more serious allegations in a workplace to do with interactions with people.”
The adjudicator, David James Murphy, closed the hearing and is to give his decision in writing to the parties in due course.
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