A Mattress Mick franchisee has been ordered to pay an ex-manager €10,000 in a pay claim - after denying an alleged "verbal agreement" to pay him double commission.
Shane Hearne secured the order for compensation on foot of a complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 against Somnus GSM Limited, trading as Mattress Mick on the Tramore Road in Waterford.
He had claimed he was owed €25,442 in wages and commission for his work at the store between September 2020 and April 2021, but only got a €10,615.84 - leaving him, he said, €14,826.16 short.
In evidence, Mr Hearne said the deal he agreed with his former employer, where he had once been a company director, was for €550 a week net pay and 2% of all merchandise sales.
Mr Hearne said there was no documentation to set out the terms of his employment, calling it "more of a verbal agreement".
He said the deal was for "low wages at a high commission rate", but that he was "never" paid the commission.
The company's payroll manager denied the commission figure agreed with Mr Hearne was 2% and said the arrangement for "all managers" was that they would get commission of 1% of their own sales and 1% of the store’s overall sales.
The payroll manager said there had been a problem "sorting out matters relating to Revenue and [Mr Hearne’s] registration with same".
"Because of this it was decided not to pay him and it was agreed to give him a directors’ loan," the witness said.
The complainant had denied "giving" himself a director’s loan.
The firm’s solicitor, Mark Walsh of Kenny Stephenson Chapman, said the pay issue was""only a small amount" and that the commission at issue "only amounted to €6,500".
"The real difference lies in the manner in which the commission was paid," Mr Walsh said.
"It is one man’s word against another," adjudicating officer Roger McGrath in a decision on the case published today, writing that the absence of "any documentary evidence" left the commission matter "open to disagreement".
However, he said Mr Hearne was managing director of the store and "had a responsibility to ensure that matters such as pay and commission be clearly laid out early on in the life of the store, in some form of a document".
"In the circumstances I believe it reasonable for the respondent to pay the complainant compensation to the amount of €10,000," Mr McGrath concluded.
