A clerk at a logistics company who claimed she was "deceived" into clocking up hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime by working until 11pm nearly every day on the "promise of a promotion" has won €10,000 in compensation for excessive working hours.
The worker, Agnieszka Mialkowska, told the Workplace Relations Commission her normal working day with her former employer, Lombard Shipping Ltd, ran from 8.30am to 5.30pm - but that she found herself working on reports until 11pm "nearly each weekday" and on Saturdays.
The tribunal upheld a claim under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 in Ms Mialkowska's favour in a decision published today.
It rejected a further claim for wages in which the worker had argued she was due an estimated €21,735 for working 630 hours of overtime between September 2021 and January 2022.
She had been dismissed from her €40,000-a-year job by the company in January 2022 on the basis that her performance was "below what it held to be the expected standard", the WRC was told.
Ms Mialkowska’s evidence was that her employer asked her to work overtime at evenings and weekends as she worked on completing reports "manually" using a freight management software system that "was not properly updated for sales ledger activity".
"There was insufficient time during the working day in which to complete these tasks. Despite the respondent being aware of this, it still sent the complainant 800 invoices to process one day before the month's end," adjudicator Christina Ryan noted in a summary of Ms Mialkowska's evidence.
There was no appearance by the company at a hearing in May this year.
Ms Ryan noted later correspondence from Lombard Shipping incorrectly referring to "mediation" and stating that its solicitor had been in hospital.
She wrote that the firm's correspondence lacked "specificity" on the illness of the company solicitor and failed to "address the fact that the [company] was notified of the adjudication hearing date by letter" six weeks in advance.
She said she was "satisfied that the respondent was on notice" when she went ahead with the hearing.
Ms Mialkowska "presented as a credible witness" and gave uncontested evidence of "excessive hours", Ms Ryan wrote in her decision.
"She stated that she was constantly under pressure to deliver product which would never have been delivered were she to have worked her normal working hours," Ms Ryan wrote.
"She was enticed into working such long hours by the promise of a promotion, however she believes she was deceived by the respondent, as the promise was nothing more than a management strategy to squeeze more productivity out of her without having to pay her," Ms Ryan added.
"I am satisfied on the basis of the complainant’s uncontested evidence presented at the hearing before the WRC that a working week of on average of in excess of 48 hours per week was a reality for the complainant," Ms Ryan added.
Ruling Lombard Shipping in breach of Section 15 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, she awarded Ms Mialkowska €10,000 in compensation.
She rejected the worker’s further claim under the Payment of Wages Act seeking overtime pay for 630 hours of work at 1.5 times her hourly salary, as there was "no provision for overtime" in the worker's contract of employment.
Following the ruling, Lombard Shipping said the claim made against the company was "baseless" and that the matter was determined without its knowledge and in its absence. It said it has since lodged an appeal against the determination.
