Case Number: ADJ-00013613. Workplace Relations Commission

• Docket Number: ADJ-00013613
• Hearing Date: 05 June 2018
• Date: 25 October 2018
• Court: Workplace Relations Commission
• Parties: A stage-hand Vs. A concert venue
• Respondent: A concert venue

ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00013613 Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	A stage-hand	A concert venue

Representatives Ray Ryan BL Ciaran Loughran, IBEC

Complaint:

Act	Complaint/Dispute Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 16 of the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act, 2001	CA-00017828-001	08/03/2018

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 05/06/2018

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015, this complaint was assignedto me by the Director General. I conducted a hearing on June 5th 2018, and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present evidence relevant to the complaint.

At the hearing, the complainant was represented by Mr Ray Ryan BL, instructed by Ms Órla Clarke of O’Connell and Clarke Solicitors. The respondent was represented by Mr Ciarán Loughran of IBEC and he was accompanied by the respondent’s head of operations and HR, the complainant’s line manager and the house manager.

This complaint was submitted on March 8th 2018, and an earlier complaint under the same legislation was submitted on December 19th 2017 (ADJ-00012481). While both complaints were heard at one sitting, two separate decisions have been issued under ADJ-00012481 and ADJ-00013613.

Background:

The respondent organisation is a concert venue that hosts around 1,000 events each year and the complainant has been employed there on a part-time, casual basis since 2011 as part of the back-stage crew. The complainant claims that he has been penalised because he made a complaint to the WRC in December 2017 about his pay and conditions as a part-time worker.

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

The complainant works with the back-stage crew, five of whom are part-time casual employees. He works an average of 26.5 hours per week and earns €12.94 per hour, resulting in an average weekly income of €352.62 gross. At the hearing, the complainant outlined the responsibilities of his role, which involve setting up the stage for performances and looking after the requirements of performers on concert days. He also said that he sets up meeting rooms and IT equipment and does a small bit of lighting. He said that he generally works five days a week, although, in accordance with his contract, he can refuse work. However, he said that he never refuses work, as this would affect his entitlement to social welfare, which he claims for the days he is not working. At the opening of the hearing, Mr Ryan said that the complainant has been subjected to unfair treatment and that he has been out of work since the end of March this year, due to work-related stress. On February 27th, he lodged a complaint of bullying against the operations manager. The respondent enlisted an external investigator to investigate this complaint and, at the time of this hearing on June 5th 2018, a report had not been issued. On December 19th 2017, the complainant submitted a complaint of less favourable treatment compared to a full-time worker. On his behalf, Mr Ryan listed the ways in which the complainant alleges that he has been penalised for making this complaint. 1 He has been subjected to hostility, targeting and personalised comments. As evidence of this treatment, the complainant referred to the fact that, in March 2017, he asked the operations and HR manager to investigate the way in which he was paid for public holidays on which he was not rostered for work. Part-time casual employees who don’t work on public holidays were normally paid for four additional hours in the week that the public holiday fell. As a result of his enquiry, it was discovered that the complainant’s pay for public holidays had been incorrectly calculated, as, due to the hours he normally worked each week, he should have been paid 7.5 hours’ pay. He was reimbursed for the shortfall. The time and attendance system was re-programmed so that employees who do not work on a public holiday receive one fifth of the hours they work in a week as the benefit for the public holiday. The result of this change in the method of calculation means that some employees now receive less than four hours’ pay for the public holidays that they don’t work. The complainant said that some employees were annoyed about this change and they claimed that it was his fault, as he had made the enquiry. He said it became “a running joke” in the workplace and that he was reminded about it once or twice a week. To address what he considered unfavourable treatment in respect of his rate of pay, the complainant and his SIPTU representative had a meeting with the operations and HR manager in November 2017. At this meeting, he alleges that the HR manager suggested that if he wasn’t happy with his conditions of employment, “he knows what he can do.” 2 The complainant’s working conditions have changed and deteriorated and the working environment has dis-improved. The complainant claims that he worked less hours in 2017 compared to previous years. Mr Ryan outlined the complainants’ working hours from 2013: 2013 1347 hours 2104 1205 hours 2015 1680 hours 2016 1790 hours 2017 1356 hours The complainant said that in 2018, he was overlooked for extra shifts and that others “got offered the shifts before me.” He said that, following a meeting in October 2017 to discuss his claim for the equivalent rate of pay to the full-time rate, he said that his colleagues remarked to him that he used to get offered shifts before other people. 3 The complainant argues that he was forced to take his outstanding holidays at the end of 2017 and prevented from carrying them over into 2018 or being paid in lieu. The complainant said that around December 12th 2017, he informed his line manager that he was submitting a complaint to the WRC, which he did on...