Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Worker

A Food Company

Representatives

Olivia O'Connor IBEC

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 - 00004544

21/06/2025

The complainant has worked for the respondent since March 24th, 2021. He says that he has experienced unequal treatment and unfair disciplinary action. The complainant specifically raised issues about a  verbal warning and a follow-up written warning timing.

He stated in relation to the latter that there had been no proper procedure and that there was ‘no HR’ in the company.  He also said that he had issues about what he saw as differential treatment of his absences and those of others.

In oral submissions to the hearing, he said that the written warning on March 3rd, 2025, had not been preceded by any process. Faced with the record of the meeting he then accepted that it had.

He also stated that there had been a delay in giving him reports of meetings held during the course of the investigation into alleged forged medical certificates, although he confirmed that he was ultimately given them.

He also confirmed that he had not exhausted the internal appeal machinery, although this was offered to him. It was his view that Stage 3 of the process had not been completed, and he was not required to appeal to the next stage.

He also accepted that he had referred the matter to the WRC before the process terminating his employment had concluded.

He left the hearing before it had properly concluded.

The respondent’s position was that it had followed proper, and its own procedures at every stage. It confirmed that, contrary to the complainant’s assertions, it had a HR function and a grievance and disciplinary procedures.

Any alleged inconsistency in the handling of absence had been fully explained to the complainant at local level.

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

The complainant outlined a range of very general grievances with the respondent, including that he had been treated less favourably than others in relation to time off or absence. He alleged that he had been ‘targeted;’ an allegation he repeated without explaining what he meant by it.

However, he had great difficulty specifying what his grievance actually was.

Eventually he particularised this as an allegation that he had not been given the benefit of any process leading up to the written warning on March 3rd, 2025, and that no meeting had taken place in relation to it. 

Neither of these allegations turned out to be true and he eventually accepted that this was the case.

The complainant had submitted several hundred pages of unexplained and disconnected documentation before the hearing; apparently as something came to mind that he considered in any way relevant, it was sent to the WRC. There were almost five hundred pages of documents on the case file.

However, it is always helpful to prepare a simple summary of one’s case for the hearing, setting out the key issues. In this case the complainant was utterly unprepared for the hearing in any way. He came without any submission or documents. While it is more symbolic than anything else, he did not have a pen or paper with which to take notes.

Hearings under the Industrial Relations Acts are relatively informal.

However, they do require parties who make a complaint to undertake simple preparations, specifically to prepare a summary of the issues that they wish to have adjudicated, bearing in mind that the jurisdiction of an Adjudicator in respect of complaints related to processes primarily one of oversight.

The complainant appeared to belief that the WRC had a role in investigating all his grievances when, as it turns out, he had failed to exhaust the workplace level procedures. He had a valid complaint about the length of time taken by an internal investigation, but sadly workplace investigations generally take far too long.

However, this was the only point of any validity he made at the hearing and he was reduced to vague generalisations about how he had been treated without crystallising this in a dispute that could be addressed by the adjudication.

In due course he decided not to take any further part in the hearing and walked out before it had concluded its business. As can be seen, this continues a pattern of behaviour by the complainant of not seeing processes through to their conclusion.

While the failure to exhaust the workplace level procedures is fatal to any reference under this Act, and renders any complainant who has not done so liable to have their complaint dismissed,   I am satisfied that the respondent managed the processes related to the complainant’s grievances fairly.

The complainant is no longer employed by the respondent and for this, and, more specifically for the reasons set out above no recommendation arises.

Workplace Procedures.