A man who worked for 51 years in the same garage before being told “f**k off with yourself now, you are fired” has been awarded €30,000 for unfair dismissal and multiple further breaches of employment law.
The worker claimed in his evidence before the Workplace Relations Commission that he started the job in July 1970 – with the Commission finding he worked a 68-hour week – earning a flat €450. He said that he “knew it was slave labour” but that he “was in a rut for 50 years” and “had no choice but to keep going”.
The garage owners maintained that Mr B had been recorded on CCTV taking a cash payment for coal, failing to record the transaction and putting the money in his pocket, a complaint denied by the worker.
The WRC also heard that 44,200 litres of gas are missing from the garage and the owners say the matter is part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
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Neither Mr B nor the owners of the unidentified garage, Mr K and Mrs K, were named in a Workplace Relations Commission decision published this morning (Weds), which upheld complaints under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act.
The WRC rejected further a further claim by Mr B under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000.
Mrs K, said that on 18 November 2021, she had challenged Mr B on a cash payment for a bag of coal which she said was not been recorded on the till that day.
CCTV footage showed the complainant “putting the cash in his pocket”, she said.
The complainant said that he “didn’t trust” the customer and so had kept the cash in his hand while following the customer out of the shop.
He said Mrs K had come in and cleared the tills while he was doing this.
Mr B denied putting the cash in his pocket and failing to later put the transaction through.
She said it was the second time that day the CCTV showed Mr B putting cash in his pocket.
Mrs K said she told Mr B the following day that she was “not happy”, but that she would “give [him] another chance and not tell her husband.
Mr B’s evidence was that it was during that meeting, in a coal shed on the garage premises, that Mrs K had told him that her husband had a gun and he would “blow the f***ing head off you”.
He denied, as Mrs K had said, that he received a warning in writing in his next pay packet.
Mrs K’s evidence was that she continued to monitor the CCTV in the weeks which followed and observed Mr B putting cash for coal sales in his pocket.
On 17 December 2021, she said she and her husband called Mr B to a meeting to show him the footage.
Mr B said he had “nothing to say” about the alleged cash for coal incident, that they could “keep the Christmas bonus” and that he was leaving, Mrs K said.
The complainant denied this and said that at the meeting Mr K said to him that 44,200 litres of gas were missing – and said he replied that there “must be a leak”.
In response to this, he told the tribunal Mr K said to him: “You can f**k off with yourself now, you are fired, and you can walk up the road.”
“The matter was then reported to An Garda Síochána and is part of an ongoing criminal investigation,” Mrs K told the tribunal.
Mr B said he was not shown the CCTV of the alleged incident by the garage owners when they met on 17 December but that he had later been “shown CCTV footage relating to him” by gardaí.
In her decision on the case, adjudicating officer Bríd Deering wrote that the WRC’s job was not to “establish the guilt or innocence of the complainant but rather to assess the reasonableness of the employer’s response”.
She wrote that it was “incumbent” on the garage owners to follow fair procedures in reaction to any suspicion of wrongdoing.
However, they had not considered suspending Mr B pending investigation, writing to him to put him on notice of an investigation, or clarifying whether he wished to resign if he had walked out as they claimed, she wrote.
“I find that the complainant was dismissed by the respondent on 17 December 2021 without notice and that the failure to follow fair procedures renders the dismissal unfair,” she wrote.
She awarded him €10,000 for the dismissal.
‘Slave labour’
The WRC also heard claims from the worker, Mr B, that he worked 84 hours a week without statutory rest breaks, holidays, holiday pay or pay for holiday – earning a flat €450 a week.
Mrs K said in her evidence that Mr B was “free to work his own hours” and that provided he worked 40 hours a week, he was “free to come and go”.
Mr B said he “knew it was slave labour” but that he “was in a rut for 50 years” and “had no choice but to keep going”.
The adjudicator, Ms Deering found Mr B’s evidence was not consistent on his shift breaks and said she was satisfied he got an hour’s break within 4.5 hours of his start time as required by law.
She added that she did not have jurisdiction to make a finding on the National Minimum Wage Act complaint as the worker had not sought a statement of working hours.
However, Ms Deering recorded three breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act in the case.
The first was that Mr B worked seven days a week without getting a weekly break, as accepted by the employer.
Second, she noted that the owners “maintained no records of hours worked”, and accepted Mr B’s evidence that he worked an average 68-hour week over a reference period of four months.
Third, Ms Deering found the employer had failed to ensure Mr B took annual leave.
She made orders against the garage owners for €5,000 for each breach, along with a further €1,800 for the failure to provide a statement of terms and conditions of employment.
This had been denied by the employers, which said the signed original which had been issued in 2005 was “water damaged”.
The total compensation and redress orders against the garage was €30,400.