Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Member of a Police Service

A Police Service

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 - 00002004

21/11/2023

The Worker served with the Employer for 33 years and resigned in 2023.   

The Worker had sat on the governing body of a member’s organisation associated with the Employer for a number of years. A dispute arose between the Worker and another member of that Organisation’s governing body in 2018. The Worker submitted a complaint in 2019. The Employer had not concluded its investigation of that complaint when the Worker resigned.

The Worker submits he was constructively dismissed after the Employer failed to address his complaint of bullying.

The Employer submits they engaged with the Worker appropriately over the course of  a complex case.

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

The Worker became active as an officer in the Organisation in 2008 and joined their national governing body in 2013. In attending to Organisation business he was facilitated with paid leave from duties and his work for the Organisation seems to have been treated as working time by the Employer.

Differences arose between the Worker and another Officer of the Organisation’s governing body in the Summer of 2018 (“Officer A”). The Worker later became aware that Officer A had gone on sick leave and was raising a complaint about him. Another Officer (“Officer B”) had circulated vague details of this to other members of the governing body without affording the Worker any opportunity to engage or respond.  He felt this was deeply unfair and undermining.  

Officer A ultimately made a complaint to the Employer about the Worker related to their interactions at meetings of the Organisation. The Employer accepted that this fell under the scope of their policies and initiated an investigation.

The Worker raised his own complaint in January 2019 related to Officer A and B’s conduct, with a senior officer of the Employer who referred him back to the Organisation’s own policies. The Worker tried to raise the matter again with the Employer in April 2019 and the Employer refused to take up the issue for a variety of reasons, citing difficulties in identifying the appropriate policy and that his complaint concerned the Organisation’s meetings rather than the workplace. This was entirely differently to how they dealt with Officer A’s complaint against him.

 Later in 2019 there was a media story published about Officer A and her allegations of being bullied. The Worker was shocked to see this breach of confidentiality, particularly as the Officer B had identified him as the alleged perpetrator to others in the Organisation. He then discovered that Officer B had published the story on social media and tagged the Worker in that post. The Worker raised this with the Employer who after a period of 6 weeks accepted that they would investigate the matter. This was in October 2019.

There was no immediate action taken to stop the leaks or address Officer B’s obvious misconduct in identifying the Worker on social media while the Employer were trying to investigate Officer A’s complaint.  That investigation would conclude in December 2019 without upholding the complaint against the Worker though it was critical of him in some respects.

The investigation continued over the following three and a half years until the Worker decided to retire. It did not conclude. The first investigator stepped back in March 2021 after failing to get sufficient advice and support from the Employer. In October 2021 the second investigator was appointed.  He took statements from key persons who were relevant to the dispute over the next two and a half years until the Worker retired.

The Employer has reasonably raised the issue that this was not a straightforward process and that the Worker added to the complaint as the process progressed. However, by any measure the investigation went on too long and at times was entirely left dormant. The Employer seem to have tolerated a number of people refusing to engage with the investigation or responding in their own time rather than directing their officers to attend for interview on a specific time and date. As it went on Officers A and B retired. The Employer appointed senior officers to carry out the investigation rather than HR professionals and in the context of their wider workload it was understandably not a priority for them.

The second investigator addressed the hearing and at one point recognised a vital issue. Many of the matters in dispute, as the complaint evolved, concerned remarks made at an Organisation meeting in the context of a row at that meeting. The investigator reasonably pointed out that he was never going to be able to make definitive findings about that kind of interaction as accounts of the meeting inevitably varied by each person’s position in relation to the internal dispute. He also recognised that the Worker, Officer A and Officer B had no ongoing contact after the Worker had stepped back from the Organisation’s governing body. Having come to that realisation it would have been reasonable to cease interviewing and write a report outlining what findings he could make.

I do not make the above observation to be critical of the investigator as I am sure that is an option he would have taken if he believed it was open to him. At times there can be a pressure on employers to conduct exhaustive investigation exercises even when it becomes apparent that specific findings will not follow or will be futile. I think it was open to the Employer to recognise this and conclude an investigation, without interviewing every potential witness, once they reached that conclusion reasonably. This will sometimes mean accepting the Employer’s own fault in letting things go on so long that the process had become futile. Though unsatisfactory such an outcome would be preferable than allowing a process drag on pointlessly.

The Worker’s submissions as to why he resigned were complex and not entirely clear as to the specific motivator. This is not necessarily unusual and when a person loses trust and confidence in their employer, particularly their employer of 33 years, it is often for a myriad of reasons. However, this lack of clarity is fatal to a finding of constructive dismissal.

While I do not conclude that the Worker was constructively dismissed I do conclude that his Employer failed to effectively investigate his complaints by way of reasonably functioning internal process. By the time the Worker resigned there was no real prospect that Worker’s complaints might be resolved through the Employer’s policies as any outcome would have been years too late to result in any action.   

I also conclude that the Employer failed to take any measures when their existence of their ongoing investigation was being used to attack the Worker publicly. This was of course difficult in the context of unnamed leaks however Officer B had blatantly crossed a line and the Employer should have taken action to address this regardless of any complaint by the Worker.

I conclude that these matters together significantly contributed to the Worker’s decision to end 33 years of service both in the sense that they were direct motivators for his decision to leave the service and in the sense he would reasonably conclude it was pointless to bring other issues that he may have been facing to their attention.

The Worker’s submission was that he had suffered a significant loss of income arising not just from his basic salary but allowances and overtime.

In the circumstances a payment of compensation is warranted and I recommend that the Employer pay to the Worker €36,600 being approximately 6 months of his basic pay at the time of retirement.