Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Worker

An Employer

Representatives

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 - 00005419

21/10/2025

In his complaint form, the Worker outlined that he was employed as a Facilities & Maintenance Manager with the Employer from 22 September 2010 until 30 April 2025.  He alleged that the Employer inappropriately used his email during his absence on sick leave by issuing correspondence in his name.

The Employer operates within the wholesale and retail trade sector. There was no attendance by or on behalf of the Employer, neither did the Employer provide a written submission outlining its position.

In his complaint form, the Worker outlined that he was employed as a Facilities & Maintenance Manager with the Employer since September 2010.  He outlined that he went out sick on 6 September 2024 and put an “out of office” message on his email account to say that he would be out on long term absences.  He advised that he never returned to work, that he resigned his position due to his medical issues and that his last day of employment was 30 April 2025.  He stated that he signed a non-disclosure agreement upon terminating his employment but that the issue before the WRC arose 19 weeks after he left the employment, so he was of the view that the Employer had breached its own non-disclosure agreement.

The Worker outlined that he received a phone call from a previous Contracts Manager from a reputable contractor that he had worked with during his employment.  The Contracts Manager informed him that as part of an annual satisfaction survey, a survey questionnaire was sent to his email address.  The Contracts Manager further advised him that the Employer had responded from his email address and had provided an extremely negative evaluation under all headings.  The Worker outlined that because of the extremely negative review the matter had been flagged with the German Headquarters of the contractors’ company.

The Worker submitted that upon some further checks it appeared to him that a person or persons within the Employer were using his email to send mails and falsified documents which he believed could cause serious reputational damage to hi, to the Employer and to customers of the Employer.  He submitted that he had sent two solicitors letters requesting that his email address be shut down, for the contractor to be advised that he was not the author of the negative review and for an investigation to be conducted to establish if any other emails had been issued in his name. The Worker advised that he received no response to those letters.  The Worker expressed grave concern about the incident that occurred, the potential of their being other such incidents that may not have come to his attention and the potential reputational risk arising in such a close-knit industry.

At hearing the Worker confirmed the above narrative originally submitted by him.

There was no attendance by or on behalf of the Employer, neither did the Employer provide a written submission outlining its position.

On the day of the hearing, I awaited the attendance of the Employer for in excess of 20 minutes beyond the scheduled start time but there was no attendance by or on behalf of the Employer at the hearing.   I allowed 7 days from the day of hearing for the Employer to make contact with the WRC post hearing to explain the absence, before finalising this decision.  No contact was made.

As the Employer was not present and did not provide any written submissions my conclusions in this matter are based solely on the information provided by the Worker. 

On that basis it appears to me that the Employer behaved unreasonably in not engaging with the Worker in relation to his concerns regarding this matter.  It was abundantly clear that the Worker simply wanted to understand how it came about that his email address had been accessed and used to provide negative feedback to another contractor and whether his email address had been used to falsely issue other correspondence in his name. Given the long service of the Worker with this Employer and given his serious ill health issues I consider it most egregious behaviour on the part of the employer to not have provided the clarity requested.

There is a clear onus on an Employer to have policies in place to govern the safe use of workplace emails and to make provision for any breaches of such policy.  In this instance it is unknown to me if the Employer had such policies in place but it is clear that the Employer did not follow any protocol in protecting the Workers identity.