Logistics multinational DHL has been ordered to pay a redundancy package worth more than €18,000 to a warehouseman left jobless after he turned down a transfer to another site that would have required a return commute up to five hours.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has upheld a complaint under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 against DHL Supply Chain Limited by stock picker Oscar Solano Fernandez, who lost his job of 15 years after bosses decided to shut down and sell off a warehouse in Clondalkin.
A senior HR manager in DHL had denied keeping workers “nominally in employment” when the warehouse closed in a bid to “avoid” paying staff their statutory redundancies.
Mr Solano told a hearing the alternative job offered by the company at a Tesco distribution centre near Donabate in north county Dublin was a two-bus journey which could take between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours each way from his home in the Coombe.
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He had previously been able to get to his former workplace at Oak Road in Clondalkin by bus in 15 to 20 minutes, he told the WRC, adding the new commute required of him would interfere with his family life.
“I don’t have nothing against DHL; they gave me a chance to work with them but I didn’t want to be spending two, three hours per day going to and back from work,” Mr Solano said.
Mr Solano, originally from Madrid, said he came to Ireland in 2005 with a former girlfriend.
Peter Spencer, a DHL human resources manager, said in evidence that when client Argos announced it was pulling out of Ireland shortly after DHL announced the sale of the Clondalkin site
, it became “unviable to look for a property in south Dublin”.
DHL moved to make 37 out of 40 warehouse staff “wholly or mainly associated” with the Argos contract redundant, he said.
Following negotiations with trade union Siptu, others, including Mr Solano, were offered transfers to locations within 50km of the Clondalkin site and a relocation package consisting of a bonus payment of €1,000 and €5,000 worth of Perx vouchers spread over three years, he said.
Barrister Paul Maier, for Mr Solano put it to Mr Spencer that “part of the motivation for keeping people nominally in employment was to avoid paying redundancy”.
“We’d absolutely dispute that point,” Mr Spencer said.
Niamh Ní Cheallaigh of Ibec, for DHL, argued that the company did not breach Mr Solano’s contract of employment.
“No redundancy situation arose and there was suitable alternative work; that’s demonstrated by the fact that 112 people did relocate. Everyone was treated the same – of those who transferred, 52 had children,” she said.
Adjudication officer Brian Dalton found the relocation proposed for Mr Solano was “not reasonable” and ruled his complaint under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 to be “well founded”.
Mr Solano was “entitled to a redundancy payment” based on his weekly wages of €580 and more than 15 years’ service. Mr Maier had told the tribunal the statutory redundancy package due to his client was worth over €18,000.
Two other complaints were dismissed.
