Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Trainer

Social Training Organistion

Representatives

Worker

 HR Manager

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 - 00007425

19/03/2025

The Employer is a not for profit organisation that provides training and employment support services. At the relevant time it was establishing a new service in a new region, initially under short term funding and operating from a series of short-term premises before securing a permanent base.

The Worker was employed as a tutor for a period of just under six months in 2024. He was absent from work from mid-October 2024. The Employer dismissed him in early December 2024 on the ground that he had not followed its absence notification procedures. He appealed and the appeal was heard in January 2025.

The Worker referred his disputes to the Commission in March 2025. I investigated the disputes at a hearing in May 2026 held in private. The Worker attended and represented himself. The Head of People attended for the Employer.

The Worker was aggrieved by his dismissal and felt he had been treated unfairly. When he became ill he told the Employer, and when he could not reach his line manager, he contacted the person he understood to be next in line. He said medical certificates were provided and that it was unfair to let him go for not contacting his line manager appropriately in those circumstances. He also raised a grievance of bullying, describing a sectarian comment made to him at one placement which he reported to senior management, together with being moved from the location he understood he was employed to work at. He also took issue at being directed with a colleague to remove furniture, work he said he was not employed to do.

The Employer said the Worker was absent without notice from mid-October 2024. His line manager and a colleague made repeated attempts to contact him. Over the following days he indicated he had been involved in a serious incident in which his work phone was stolen, and a crime reference number was later provided. Sick pay was paid under its scheme and then exhausted, and a week of unpaid leave was agreed.

The Employer wrote to the Worker twice in late October 2024, attaching its Absence Management Policy, asking him to make contact and warning that he could be treated as absent without leave. Medical certificates were received covering late October to mid-November and a further three weeks. A hospital admission letter was not accepted as certification. A further letter in late November reminded him of the notification procedure and proposed a welfare meeting. The absence was uncertified from late November. Calls and texts in early December went unanswered and the Employer dismissed the Worker in early December 2024, with an appeal offered and heard.

The Employer said it acted with empathy and flexibility throughout, but it has a duty of care to its staff and to the people who use its services, its procedures were not followed, and it acted in line with its policies.

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

The Worker referred three disputes under Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969. Two concern his dismissal (IR - SC - 00007423 and IR - SC - 00007424) and one concerns an allegation of bullying (IR - SC - 00007425).

 A dispute under Section 13 is a voluntary process. Where a worker pursues the same matter as a statutory employment right, the voluntary process becomes redundant.

IR-SC-00007423 and IR-SC-00007424: Dismissal

These disputes concern the Worker’s dismissal. The Worker pursued his dismissal as statutory complaints of unfair dismissal, which I have dealt with separately. As the dismissal has been advanced as a statutory right, the voluntary dispute resolution process under Section 13 is displaced, and there is nothing left for me to resolve in these disputes.

IR-SC-00007425: Bullying

This dispute concerns the Worker’s allegation of bullying. I have considered the Worker’s account of how he was treated and the Employer’s response, including that the reported comment was followed up and the service moved from that location soon after.

A dispute of this kind is assessed against the statutory code of practice, the Industrial Relations Act 1990 (Code of Practice for Employers and Employees on the Prevention and Resolution of Bullying at Work) SI No. 674 of 2020. The code carries the accepted meaning of workplace bullying as repeated inappropriate behaviour, direct or indirect, whether verbal, physical or otherwise, at the place of work or in the course of employment, which could reasonably be regarded as undermining the individual’s right to dignity at work. A one-off comment, however unwelcome, does not meet that meaning. The code also sets out the informal and formal steps a worker and employer are each expected to follow, and it envisages that an internal process will have been engaged before the dispute reaches me.

To assess this dispute, I would need to measure the practice in the company against what the code requires. The dispute as framed does not contain the detail to allow me to do so. It asserts bullying in general terms and refers to a single reported comment. There is no particularised account of repeated behaviour, no evidence that the Worker invoked an internal grievance or dignity at work process, and nothing on which I could assess the company’s practice against the code. On the material before me the dispute is not made out.

Less than 12 months service, parallel Unfair Dismissal claims, bullying complaint