A worker at a chemical waste disposal firm has won over €28,000 after he was sacked for making a formal bullying complaint, despite a tribunal rejecting his claims that he was blowing the whistle on the mishandling of chemicals and was targeted for it.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has found that a formal bullying complaint raised by the worker was the "clear" motive for the worker's dismissal – rejecting claims that he had made a series of protected safety disclosures about the alleged mishandling of hazardous chemical waste and been sacked for it.
The tribunal made the award to the worker on foot of a series of statutory complaints under employment rights and health and safety legislation in a fully anonymised decision published today.
His former employer did not dispute breaches of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973, the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the Payment of Wages Act 1991 as alleged - but had denied penalisation under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
In his evidence, the worker said he had been penalised and then dismissed on 10 February 2023 for raising complaints about the storage, labelling and shipment of waste chemical materials at his workplace, the site of a client company where he worked as waste operations lead.
He claimed he had flagged 25 different issues of compliance with the regulations on handling hazardous chemical waste on 25 separate occasions, each of which amounted to acts protected under health and safety law, he contended.
However, he said the the company would "dismiss" what he had to say at meetings from December 2022 onward and that he felt "excluded" at these – adding that he "experienced pressure from management not to raise the issues with the client", he said in evidence.
Asked why he had not used the firm’s safety software, called TenForce, to log the problems, he said he "did not have time to engage with TenForce" and that he had either emailed "the people who needed to know" or "flagged the issues" with them.
He said he "did not have sufficient on-site support" and that there were "only so many hours in the day".
The tribunal heard that around this time, the employer was moving forward with a plan to move the logistics activities of the business away from the client site where the complainant was working – a move the complainant had questioned.
It was put to the complainant that his conflict with the company was down to an "interpersonal dispute with colleagues".
The worker said he complained of "bullying" and an "unhealthy working environment" in January 2023 – writing that people "were shouting at me over various things"; "put a lot of pressure on me" and "excluded" him from multiple meetings.
He was placed on "administrative leave" following that email and dismissed a week later, the tribunal was told .
The company’s operations manager denied dismissing the employee over making a bullying complaint, but said there had been a "fundamental breakdown" in relations at the workplace and "interpersonal issues" between the complainant and a project manager.
Similar problems had arisen between the complainant and his last two supervisors, he told the tribunal. His evidence was he decided to put the complainant on administrative leave "due to the stress [the project manager] was under" – and that he had also made the call to end the complainant’s employment.
The company’s position on the safety allegations raised by the complainant was that he had failed to use the "proper channel" to make reports.
One company witness pointed to scores of 100% in an internal audit, which he said "could not have been achieved" if the complainant’s allegations on work practices were "accurate".
The adjudicator, Una Glazier-Farmer, noted in her decision that that because there were "financial rewards" for using the employer’s risk reporting system, she did not accept that the complainant had been "discouraged" from using it – rather that the company "strongly encouraged reporting".
Of the 25 alleged incidents, Ms Glazier-Farmer wrote that there was "credible evidence" from the health and safety manager that the company was only made aware of four issues – meaning the complainant had failed to meet the burden of proof in regard to notifying his employer.
Ms Glazier-Farmer said the complainant had failed to meet the burden of proof in connection with the others, as there was a lack of clarity on when incidents happened in the evidence and no evidence of a causal connection to any detriment, she added.
However, the adjudicator accepted that the complainant’s formal complaint on 19 January 2023 alleging "bullying" and an "unhealthy working environment" could be considered a protected act under the workplace safety legislation.
"But for the complainant’s email, considered a protected act, he would not have suffered a detriment, namely his dismissal," she wrote.
She said the "motive was clear" as the operations manager had failed to pass on the complainant’s email to the subject of the complaint for her response, or look for an independent investigation – and instead put the complainant on administrative leave for a week before sacking him, Ms Glazier-Farmer added.
The adjudicator, Ms Glazier-Farmer noted that the employer did not contest the Unfair Dismissals Act complaint and awarded the worker €23,642.17 for the dismissal – the full sum he had sought for loss of earnings between 16 weeks’ unemployment and ongoing losses from reduced pay in a new role.
She made no award for penalisation in connection with the bullying claim, concluding that she did not have jurisdiction to compensate the worker a second time for his dismissal – but ordered the employer to pay €3,747.05 for non-payment of notice and a further €952.64 for unpaid wages for the week prior to the dismissal. The total sum awarded in the case was €28,341.86.
The claimant was represented in the case by Thomas O’Donnell BL, instructed by James Reilly & Son Solicitors. Arthur Cush BL appeared for the employer instructed by Kenny Sullivan Solicitors.
The ruling was wholly anonymised by Ms Glazier-Farmer on the basis that the worker "failed to discharge the burden of proof" after making "a series of allegations relating to commercially sensitive matters that could reasonably be considered damaging to the respondent’s reputation".
