Communications giant Verizon won't have to pay hotel bills and conference fees to four staff representatives for a training course following a landmark case before the Workplace Relations Commission.
The dispute, centring on an invoice for under €12,000 and conference fees of around €1,250 for four attendees, plus travel and subsistence, was contested over five days of hearing by high-powered legal teams, including top Irish employment law barristers and the former German minister for justice.
However, in issuing its first-ever rulings under the 1996 Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Act 1996, the tribunal ordered the telecoms major to pay a Czech worker €4,000 for penalisation after accusing him of "misleading" local managers about the conference, and threatening disciplinary action.
The WRC also ordered Verizon to split an €11,220 bill from a legal expert who advised members of its pan-European works council on Brexit and the lapsing of a previous negotiating agreement with the committee’s chairman.
The complaints were taken against Verizon Ireland Ltd, representing the central management of the group, by workers Jan Frӧding of its Swedish subsidiary; Pavel Macho of the Czech arm; Kevin Rodgers of its Danish firm and Jean-Phillippe Charpentier, an employee of the multinational’s French subsidiary and chairman of its European Works Council.
The WRC was told the company had not reimbursed three of the workers for fees or travel expenses for a training conference in Hamburg in September 2021, while Mr Macho had his travel paid for but was refused other sums.
Their barrister, Tony Kerr SC, who appeared on the instructions of former German justice minister Dr Herta Däubler-Gmelin of law firm Schwegler, argued that the European directive required the firm to provide training to address the "inequality of arms" in terms of expertise on European employment law between it and the workers’ representatives.
The workers’ committee chairman, Mr Charpantier, told the WRC he was "left hungry" by earlier training provided by the company around the impact of Brexit, and that some of it had been "box-ticking".
The presenters "pushed back on questions" and had answered questions "brusquely" – one of them stating he "was not their advisor", Mr Charpantier added.
"[We] were left with the impression that it was long and painful to avail of dispute resolution in Ireland," Mr Charpantier said.
Talks on renewing a works council agreement broke down in October 2020, the tribunal heard, with the company also transferring to Irish jurisdiction for the purposes of the works council directive around the same time.
The tribunal rejected the company’s position that the WRC lacked jurisdiction on the training expenses, as the agreement had lapsed and the workers’ reps had only "subsidiary" rights.
Mr Charpentier added that a "vacuum" had opened up after Verizon’s agreement with the workers lapsed, and the works council migrated to Irish jurisdiction after Brexit.
The workers had to take on a €300-an-hour expert consultant to aid them, racking up a bill of €11,220 which the company had not paid, he said.
The WRC heard the company had not reimbursed three of the workers for fees or travel expenses for the Hamburg training conference in September 2021 -- valued at €1,250 in Mr Rodgers’ case and 4,052 Swedish kroner in Mr Frӧding’s.
A fourth worker, the Czech representative Mr Macho, said he had his travel paid for, but was refused the other sums.
Company industrial relation lead Dragos Voinescu said in evidence that Mr Macho had "escalated" his involvement in the training in Hamburg in emails to local bosses by calling it "compulsory" when Verizon's central management had already taken a "clear position".
Mr Macho’s emails to his line managment "were not copied" and indicated the complainant "wanted to hide" the position of central management on the conference expenses, Mr Voinescu said.
He told the WRC he had been warned of disciplinary action by the company over the wording of an email to local managers asking for permission to go, when he had called the training "compulsory".
The same HR officer who signed off on his application warned him there would be "disciplinary action" if he "did it again", Mr Macho added.
Barrister Tom Mallon BL, appearing for Verizon instructed by Lewis Silken Solicitors, argued it had acted "correctly" in respect of Mr Macho and that he had not been penalised.
He argued the relevant directive set out a "spirit of co-operation", requiring dialogue and consultation – including discussion of costs "before they are occurred".
He said the group of workers "could not have a blank cheque regarding training" but that it was willing to make "part of the payment" for the expert.
The firm accepted that the WRC had jurisdiction over the question of training costs, but not the expert expenses, he said.
In four parallel decisions issued in the matter, WRC adjudicating officer Kevin Baneham told the workers they had standing to take their claims on the conference expenses, but that their approach to claiming them had not been within the "spirit of co-operation".
He said there was "no evidence" that the two-day training delivered remotely was less than members of a European Work Council "could be expected to obtain" – noting an academic study which found that between one and three days was typical.
Mr Baneham said the firm had been "clear that it would not pay for the costs" of going to conference, and that the correct action for the workers would be to lodge a complaint rather than to go anyway and send the bill.
However, the adjudicator found the company’s actions towards Mr Macho "were not warranted" and that he was entitled to the travel costs on foot of a deal with local management.
He found that Mr Macho had been penalised, awarding him €4,000 compensation, to be paid in Czech crowns, and ordering the employer to "expunge" the warning from his disciplinary record.
Mr Baneham found further that the workers’ council was entitled to have the employer cover some of the cost of engaging the consultancy firm during the "time of change".
However, he said the workers’ council’s failure to alert central management that they were hiring the advisor until the work had already started was not in the spirit of co-operation and so that some items on the invoice could not be billed to the company.
He made an order for €5,610, 50% of the total bill for the advisor, to be paid to the chairman of the workers’ council, Mr Charpentier.
