Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Jose  Santos

Asba Meats

Representatives

Self Represented

 Not present

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 27 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997

CA-00068406-002

02/01/2025

The Complainant was employed as a Deboner from June 22nd 2023 to January 2nd 2025. He claimed he was treated badly for refusing to go into work on a Saturday without 24 hour notice.,

The Complainant had difficulty setting out his complaint and could not identify any specific date when the alleged bad treatment occurred or exactly what was the bad treatment. He stated he had to leave the employment as a result of the bad treatment.

A Complaint was received by the Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission by the Complainant  on  January 2nd 2025 alleging that his former employer contravened the provisions of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997   in relation to him. The said complaint was referred to me for investigation. A Hearing for that purpose was held on May 20th 2019. There was no appearance by or on behalf of the Respondent at the Hearing. I am satisfied that the said Respondent  was informed in writing of the date, time and place at which the Hearing to investigate the complaint would be held and were not present at the Hearing.

The Complainant was employed from the 22nd of June 2023  to the 6th of January 2025 as a Deboner.

Section 17.1  of the Organisation of Working Time sets out the requirements for notifications of working hours where they are not specified in the contract. In general, where it is unspecified, employees are entitled to 24 hours notice of what day and what hours they are required to work. Section 17.4 allows a degree of flexibility in this notification for unforeseen circumstances.

At the Hearing the Complainant was requested to set out his complaint but could not provide any specific date which he alleged a breach of the Act occurred. He stated he could supply text messages to support his case and was given the opportunity post hearing to submit any evidence to support his complaint. The Complainant submitted a number of text messages without any accompanying detail as to how they supported his complaint and was given the opportunity to do so after he submitted the texts but did not do so.  As noted above the Respondent did not attend the Hearing and was copied on the Complainant communications and no contribution was forthcoming from the Respondent.

I have reviewed the text messages supplied by the Complainant and in general they relate to when work was available.  Some from the Respondent state that the Complainant should take days off during the week, others from the Complainant state that staff are not happy to work on Saturdays but the Complainant is;  others from the Respondent discuss what days when cattle and lambs would be available for deboning. Etc. In general the texts showed a high degree of variation when work was available and to how it was scheduled.

The Complainants contract of employment, signed by both parties in June 2023, state he will work 40 hours per week, Monday to Friday inclusive, and that these hours will be subject to any variations required in the normal course of business or as otherwise agreed with the company. It also states it was company policy not to have staff work above normal hours. There was no evidence to suggest the Complainant initiated a formal grievance whilst employed on the issue of notification of hours to be worked.

My conclusion from the contract of employment and the text messages is that it was very hard to predict when animals would be available for staff to work on and that the supply days of animals varied a lot in the business and often the Respondent had no work during the week and informed the Complainant to stay at home and “rest”. There was no suggestion the Complainant was not paid his normal weekly wage when this happened. Also it was clear from the texts a few times the Complainant was asked/required to attend for work on Saturdays instead of during the week. The contract of employment  appears to be written to “accommodate” the anticipated variation in supply of animals by stating “these hours will be subject to any variations required in the normal course of business or as otherwise agreed with the company”. There was no evidence supplied of any action taken against the Complainant if he did not attend work on a Saturday.   From some of the texts supplied I could maybe deduce that 24 hours notice had not been given about a Saturday work day, but there was no definitive dates where the Complainant showed he attended for work with less than 24 hours notice. The Adjudicator cannot “surmise” evidence in the absence of it being directly presented by a party and it being subject to investigation.

Overall the evidence supplied does not allow me to definitively conclude that there was a breach of the Act regarding adequate notice of days/hours to be worked and there was no evidence supplied that the Complainant ,as alleged, was “badly treated” for refusing to work on a Saturday.

The Complainant did not set out an exact date and specific breach of the Act by the Respondent and given the “flexibility” built into the contract of employment and the amount of variation in the pattern of days of the week when the Complainant would work (based on animal supply) I find it difficult, based on the evidence supplied, to categorically determine a breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act occurred. As a result, I find the complaint not well founded.

Notification of Working Hours