Latest news with #constructiveDismissal
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Irish Times
EBay customer support agent sanctioned for four minutes of inactivity loses dismissal case
An eBay customer support agent who quit after being written up for failing to explain four minutes of inactivity on his computer to his manager's satisfaction has lost his claim for constructive dismissal. The employee told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) earlier this year he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life at the time of the events that led to the warning, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'. His former manager said: 'Anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance.' A claim for constructive dismissal brought by the worker, Eanna Donoghue, under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against eBay Europe Services Ltd, has been rejected by the tribunal. READ MORE Mr Donoghue quit on March 5th, 2024, the day he was told a company appeals officer had decided to leave a written warning for 'work avoidance' on his personnel file – effectively barring him from seeking promotion for a time, he said. He had been in the €41,000-a-year job for just short of seven years. The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue's former line manager, Niamh Seoighe, wrote to him on Thursday, December 21st, 2024 telling him she had observed on a screen recording that he closed off a customer issue by email in a minute and 36 seconds, but left the page open for a few minutes. 'I couldn't take it any longer,' Mr Donoghue said, telling the WRC the reprimand for 'work avoidance' followed a period when he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'. 'For some reason that was just ignored. A perfect record for seven years, and she [his line manager] still thought it was reasonable and fair to give me a warning on that incident,' he said. Mr Donoghue's said the reprimand over the four-minute inactivity incident in January 2024 and informal 'verbal counselling' on November 28th, 2023 for lateness was linked to filing grievances, starting with complaints against two operations managers on November 16th that year. He said he was aggrieved to get 'a warning for going to the bathroom for four minutes, for not closing off an email' when he claimed he had called people out for 'doing 10 times worse' in the past. Mr Donoghue had 'informal verbal counselling' for lateness in the months before the downtime issue arose, the tribunal heard. Three instances of lateness were officially recorded on Mr Donoghue's file. The company submitted he had actually arrived late on eight occasions. The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue had car trouble at the time and was trying to get from Navan, Co Meath, to Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, by bus. He told the WRC the Minister for Transport had admitted to a newspaper 'the NX [bus] didn't turn up'. 'That was out of my control, I couldn't get to work,' he said. Mr Donoghue's position during a disciplinary meeting had been that he 'forgot to close the email' before taking a break, and that 'he might have gone to get a cup of tea', counsel for the respondent Mark Curran BL said in cross-examination. 'To this day I'm not sure,' Mr Donoghue said. 'I took a couple of calls in this time,' he said. 'You did say you took a personal call about the person in the river,' he said. 'I took a personal call, but I'm not sure if it was in that four minutes,' the complainant said. Ms Seoighe said in her evidence that she wrote to Mr Donoghue before Christmas that year looking for an explanation after observing on a screen recording from his computer that he had finished responding to the email but failed to mark himself as available for up to five minutes. 'It was call avoidance,' she said. 'If I'm going on the 'break unpaid' ops code, I'm being skipped; it's going to someone else on the team, they're getting additional calls,' she said. '[For] idle time on an email, anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance,' she said. Her position was that the issue was exacerbated by Mr Donoghue's failure to use an hour specifically allotted for him to answer her queries on the downtime and because of that she 'had to follow up several times'. The written warning given to Mr Donoghue by Ms Seoighe was upheld in a paper-based appeal. In her decision, adjudicator Eileen Campbell wrote that she had 'every sympathy' for the difficulties Mr Donoghue had experienced in his personal life. She wrote that Mr Donoghue 'appears to feel that he has been treated unfairly by the imposition of a first written warning for behaviour of a type he would have called out in respect of agents in the past'. 'When his team leader does her job and addresses an issue with the complainant he considers it to be unreasonable behaviour and alleges he is being targeted,' she wrote. She noted further that Mr Donoghue quit 'without any attempt at raising a grievance' about the warning. 'I am not persuaded by the complainant that resignation was his only option,' she concluded, dismissing the complaint.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
I have no option but to hand in my notice as my employer is being acquired by a previous employer
The engineering company where I work is being acquired by another company. I also used to work for the company taking over my current employer. I had a very unhappy time in that place as did many others because there is a very bad working culture in the acquiring company. We are being told that there will be no redundancies – voluntary or compulsory. I have no option but to hand in my notice. Would I be entitled to constructive dismissal in these circumstances? READ MORE The reader's case, as described, is an 'unusual and unlucky' situation for an employee to find themselves in, according to experts in employment law and human resources, though they advise not to make any hasty decisions and to use processes available to them. Anne O'Connell , principal of employment law firm AOC Solicitors, believes the reader might be 'jumping the gun' in this case, saying the acquiring company could be under new management, and the takeover might not necessarily mean both are merging. 'They might just work alongside each other and there might be no changes in the personnel, so I think they should see it out and see what happens,' she says, advising not to 'assume anything'. The reader in this case cannot claim constructive dismissal based on their previous experience with the acquiring company, she says, as it was a separate employment and period. 'Unless the new owner actually does something to them in the present, and doesn't remedy it, and they go through the internal procedures first, there's no constructive dismissal,' she says. 'They haven't had dealings with this company in this current role; they can't say their current role is made impossible because something has happened in a different employment, in a different role, in a different location before,' she says. O'Connell advises staying put and seeing how the transfer transpires, and if the employee finds themselves in the same scenario as they did prior, they could lodge a grievance. After the internal grievance process has been exhausted, and if the problem remains unrectified, there could be an avenue for constructive dismissal. 'Only at that point, if the conduct is serious enough, should they look at constructive dismissal, but only if they can objectively say: 'I can't continue in this job,'' she says. Should someone choose to pursue this route, the internal grievance process must be used first, and the employer must be given an opportunity to mend the problem. Will DoorDash takeover of Deliveroo mean better pay and conditions for gig economy workers? Listen | 28:33 Earlier this week, US meal delivery group DoorDash agreed a deal to take over its British rival Deliveroo, which has a big presence in deal is valued at £2.9 billion and will pit the merged group in competition with other online delivery platforms such as Just Eat and Uber Cant is an author and senior lecturer from the University of Essex and also worked for Deliveroo while he was in joined host Ciarán Hancock on the line to discuss the merger and what it might mean for Deliveroo's battalion of gig economy workers and for retailers using the online ordering on this week's Inside Business, the Department of Finance's annual progress report on the Irish economy, a document that informs budgetary strategy and is filed with the European week it brought news of a slowdown in growth, reduced job creation and a significant fall in corporation tax Burke-Kennedy covered the story for The Irish Times and explained the headline numbers in the report and what impact Trump's tariffs will have on Irish economic growth this by John Casey with JJ Vernon on sound. Constructive dismissal is a 'very hard case to bring home for an employee,' she says, in which the employee must prove they had no choice but to resign due to the actions of their employer. 'It's a very last resort, it's a very hard case to win,' O'Connell says. Michelle Halloran , independent HR consultant and workplace investigator, of Halloran HR Resolutions, agrees that circumstances may have improved within the reader's former company. 'Maybe the management has changed – often, people have problems with a particular line manager, there's always a possibility a few years on that it might be a better environment,' she says. However, a period of consultation with employees prior to transfer, which is required, might provide an opportunity for the reader to raise concerns with their current employer, ahead of the acquisition. This would be an chance to raise prior experience in working under the acquiring company, outlining the fact that they do not want to work for them and why. However, documentation such as previous written complaints or grievances made while working under the acquiring company are vital. Should the reader have such documentation, their current employer might approach the acquiring company on their behalf, and both might work towards a solution. While the incoming employer will be the one to make the decision, they may opt to allow for a redundancy package in this case, particularly if there are records to back up the claim. 'If they never raised anything and they just quit, and they're very unlucky and go to work for someone else and they end up being transferred back to the original employer, if there's no record, they don't really have a leg to stand on,' she says.
Irish Times
13-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘Say Kate is your boss': Pharmacist claims ex-TD O'Connell and husband were working him ‘to death'
A pharmacist who claims he was forced out of a €112,000-a-year job because former TD Kate O'Connell and her husband were working him 'to death' has denied raising his voice and becoming 'aggressive' when she pulled him up on using his phone at work. In a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, Marwan Al Rahbi has alleged that he was constructively dismissed by Rathgar Pharmacy Ltd – having been forced to quit order to protect his health after a diagnosis of workplace stress, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) was told. The company, which is owned and operated by Mrs O'Connell and her husband, has pharmacies in Kilmacud , Rathgar and Sandyford in south Dublin . It denies the complaint. Mr Al Rahbi in evidence to the WRC on Tuesday: 'They were working me to the death. One of the reasons to resign was to protect my health and mental health. I couldn't sleep at night, and I have a family. I provided them many opportunities to resolve things, and they didn't,' he said. READ MORE His barrister, Cillian McGovern, appearing instructed by Crushell & Co Solicitors, said his client had written to his employer raising a formal workplace grievance in May 2024, referring to 'several concerning incidents', but was met with 'blanket denial' from Mrs O'Connell, and that the matters were not addressed by the firm. The WRC heard that Mr Al Rahbi initially complained about Mrs O'Connell to her husband after she found him using his mobile phone at work on one occasion early in 2024. Mr Al Rahbi said Mrs O'Connell had come up to him and said: 'Are you not working?' Mr Al Rahbi's evidence was that despite a directive on mobile phone use at work, the pharmacy group operated five or six WhatsApp groups where work-related information was circulated. He said he was using his phone on that occasion because he was 'dealing with my sick child' at the time. The complainant said he then phoned Morgan O'Connell about what had happened. At the time, Mr O'Connell was waiting in hospital for his wife to collect him following shoulder surgery, the tribunal heard. 'I rang Morgan, and he said: 'Go the f*** back to work',' Mr Al Rahbi said. His position was that it showed that the likely outcome of any workplace grievance he raised with Mr O'Connell about his wife, or vice versa, was going to be 'unfair'. Mrs O'Connell told the WRC on Tuesday that Mr Al Rahbi was 'insubordinate' towards her on April 15th, 2024. 'It was the flying off the handle at me ... it was extremely unusual for a support pharmacist to verbally attack their senior pharmacist, their boss, in front of other staff,' she said. She said Mr Al Rahbi was 'very on edge, agitated, aggressive', Mrs O'Connell said, adding that she 'instinctively' moved to the far side of a bench during the incident. 'I do remember I said to him: 'If you think you're going to hit me, that's not going to go very well for you', as he wagged his finger and shouted in my face,' she added. When counsel for the respondent Derek Dunne, instructed by Kelly Hoban Solicitors, put it to Mr Al Rahbi in cross-examination that he had been 'aggressive' or 'confrontational' with Mrs O'Connell, he said: 'No, I haven't been aggressive. This is my way to speak.' Questioned on a further interaction with Mr O'Connell in the pharmacy a number of days later, Mr Dunne, put it to Mr Al Rahbi that he had 'refused to acknowledge Mrs O'Connell as your immediate superior'. The complainant said Mr O'Connell was 'shaking' and 'screaming' at him, quoting him as saying: ''Say Kate is your boss.'' 'I said: 'Why should I say that?'' Mr Al Rahbi said. He said Mr O'Connell then told him he was to put his phone in the kitchen. 'We are not in school. I have a family. I am a responsible adult,' he said. 'He was screaming: 'Are you continuing to use the phone?'' he added. Counsel put it to Mr Al Rahbi that Mr O'Connell had given him a verbal warning on that occasion. Mr Al Rahbi said it was 'five minutes of shouting' and that 'turning up shouting and angry at me' was 'not a verbal warning'. Mr Al Rahbi said Mr and Mrs O'Connell raised mobile phone use as an issue with him at a review meeting later in May 2024. 'I was trying to answer; they didn't allow me to speak.' He said he wanted to discuss his overall working hours, rostering during Ramadan, the contract he had been presented with and the question of a pay rise, but that these were not addressed by the couple. His evidence was that Morgan O'Connell told him: 'You are here just to listen, not to speak.'' The employer's position is that Mr Al Rahbi told his bosses he was quitting the job with a week's notice. Mr Al Rahbi said Mr O'Connell told him he was 'dismissed' but that he had not been sure whether that meant from the meeting or from his employment. The tribunal heard Mr O'Connell wrote to Mr Al Rahbi a few days later: 'You were not dismissed by me, you were offered a renewal of your contract under the same terms and conditions.' Mr O'Connell added in his email that he was 'an employer of 20 years' and was aware that a dismissal was meant to be in writing. In her evidence, Mrs O'Connell told the WRC that Mr Al Rahbi 'said he was quitting' at that stage. 'I distinctly remember Morgan saying: 'We're going to offer you the same contract and the same terms and conditions.' He [Mr Al Rahbi] said: 'I quit.' We said: 'When?' He said: 'I'm leaving in a week.'' Mr Al Rahbi's complaint stated that he reached 'breaking point' during a 12.5-hour shift on June 19th last year. The tribunal heard the pharmacy followed a four-three shift pattern on a 28-day rotation, with 12.5-hour daily shifts. Mr Al Rahbi said he had agreed with Mrs O'Connell in September 2023 that he would have reduced hours for Ramadan in 2024. Adjudicator Andrew Heavey has asked Mrs O'Connell to produce working-time records. The adjudicator has adjourned the case pending the arrangement of another date for the hearing in the autumn, when it is expected Mr O'Connell and an employee of the pharmacy group, Sarah Lynch, will give their evidence.
