TED211

1. Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No(s). ADJ-00015303 CA-00019923-001.

BACKGROUND:

2. This is an appeal under Section 8(1) of the Terms of Employment (Information) Acts, 1994 to 2014. A Labour Court hearing took place in a virtual setting on 14 January 2021. The following is the Court's Determination:

DETERMINATION :

This matter comes before the Court as an appeal by the Claimant at first instance, Pamela Marray (the Claimant), against the decision of an Adjudication Officer in her complaint made under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 (the Act), against her former employer The Cheshire Foundation in Ireland Cheshire Ireland (the Respondent). The Adjudication Officer held that the complaint was not well founded.

The Claimant was employed by the Respondent from November 2010 until March 2018 when her employment terminated.

Summary position of the Claimant.

The Claimant submitted that the Respondent had, in October 2016, proposed to change her contractual arrangements from a salaried arrangement to an hourly paid arrangement and to change the location of her employment.

These changes amounted to a change to her written statement of terms of employment and the Respondent, in accordance with the requirements of the Act at Section 5(1), was required to notify her in writing of nature and date of the change no later than one month after the change took effect.

The Claimant submitted that the Respondent had failed to notify her of the changes to the statement within the time allowed by the Act at Section 5.

Summary position of the Respondent.

The Respondent submitted that whereas, for reasons outlined to the Court, proposals had been made to the Claimant in October 2016 which, if accepted and implemented, would have brought about changes to the hours of work and or work location of the Claimant; those changes were provided for in the Claimant’s contract of employment and would not amount to a change to the written statement of terms of employment provided to her. In any event, no changes were ever implemented, consequently, and no breach of section 5(1) of the Act occurred.

The Law

Section 5(1) of the Act provides as follows:

5.(1) Subject to subsection (2), whenever a change is made or occurs in any of the particulars of the statement furnished by an employer under section 3, 4 or 6 , the employer shall notify the employee in writing of the nature and date of the change as soon as may be thereafter, but not later than—

(a) 1 month after the change takes effect, or

(b) where the change is consequent on the employee being required to work outside the State for a period of more than 1 month, the time of the employee’s departure.

Discussion and conclusions.

The Court established at its hearing that no proposals as outlined by the Claimant were implemented by the Respondent. Consequently, the Court concludes that no change to any of the particulars of the written statement of terms of employment of the Claimant ever, within the meaning of the Act, took effect.

In those circumstances, the Court concludes that the within complaint and appeal cannot succeed.

Decision

For the reasons outlined above the Court decides that the complaint of the Claimant is not well founded. The appeal fails and the decision of the Adjudication Officer is affirmed.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
TH	______________________
10 February 2021	Chairman