Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Engineer

Employment Agency

Representatives

Self-Represented

Self-Represented

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

IR - SC - 00002552

26/04/2024

The Worker was engaged by the Employer in their capacity as an employment agency. In this regard while the Worker accepted a role with the agency, he did not formally commerce employment at any stage.

On 26th April 2024, the Worker refereed the present dispute to the Commission. Herein, he alleged that the organisation to which he was to be hired did not engage him as an employee and attempted to extort money from him. By response, the Employer did not dispute the factual matrix presented by the Worker, but stated that they were not aware of this issue at hand until such a time as the Worker referred it to them.

Following the Employer’s failure to object to the investigation of the dispute within the statutory timeframe, the matter proceeded to hearing. Said hearing was convened for, and finalised on, 30th September 2024. This hearing was conducted by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and SI 359/20206, which designates the WRC as a body empowered to hold remote hearings. No technical issues were experienced during the hearing.

Both parties’ issued brief written submissions in advance of the hearing, these submissions were expanded upon and contested in the course of the hearing itself.

By submission, the Worker stated that he liaised with the Employer for the purposes of securing a working visa. With the assistance of the Employer, the Worker was granted a work permit on 10th June 2023, at which point he began to prepare the documents relevant to his visa application. Following the awarding of this visa, the Worker travelled to the jurisdiction on 31st January 2024 in order to take up employment with the hirer by means of the agency.

On his arrival in the state, the Worker did not hear from any representatives from the agency or the proposed hirer. Some weeks later, on 26th March 2024, the Worker received a request for a payment of a substantial sum of money prior to his commencing his role. The Worker did not intend to pay this sum, and viewed the request itself as being unreasonable. In due course, the Worker was unable to secure alternative employment, and duly returned to his country of origin.

By submission, the Worker stated that he had been treated extremely badly by the Respondent organisation. In this respect, he submitted that he was induced to apply for a job that didn’t exist and resulted in the prospective hirer seeking to extort a significant sum of money from him.

From the outset the Employer commiserated with the Worker regarding the sequence of events described.

The Employer stated that they were engaged as an agency that secured the services of certain professionals, generally based overseas, for the placement within companies within the state. The Employer accepted that they engaged with the Employee in respect of such service for a client. In this respect, they stated that they had little to no knowledge of the activities of the client, other than they were seeking to secure certain professional services. The Employer agreed that they helped the Worker with his preparations for his visa and residence applications.

The Employer stated that they first they heard of the allegation of extortion was from the complaint raised by the Worker. In this regard they commiserated with the Worker and suggested that this complaint should be referred to the relevant authorities. Nonetheless, the Employer stated that they were strangers to this complaint and could not rectify the same in any meaningful way.

In conducting my investigation, I have taken into account all relevant submissions presented to me by the parties.

Regarding the present dispute, the Employer acts and as an agent. In this respect, the Worker commenced employment with the agency in mid-June 2023 and hoped to commence a pre-arranged placement with a hirer shortly thereafter. As matters transpired, this hirer initially did not make contact with the Worker on his arrival in the state and thereafter sought to extort a considerable sum of money from him. Thankfully, the Worker did not pay this sum but instead returned to his homeplace. By submission, the Worker stated that while he did not fall victim to the extortion attempt, he wasted a significant amount of time and money relocating to the state for a role that, apparently, never existed in the first place.

By response, Employer stated that they had no knowledge of the activities or the intentions of this hirer, essentially portraying themselves as a blameless middleman.  In this regard, it should be noted that the purpose of the referral of a dispute under the present Act is to offer a practical solution to a dispute, within a voluntarist framework, in an effort to resolve the issues between the parties. Regarding the present dispute, the allegations raised by the Worker related to an attempted criminal extortion.  The investigation and resolution such a complaint is well beyond the remit of the present investigation. In such circumstances, while I have substantial sympathy for the plight of the Worker, I find that it would be inappropriate to make any recommendation in relation to the present dispute as referred.

Trade Dispute, Criminal Investigation, Agency