A migrant worker has told the Workplace Relations Commission that his former security company employer was in the practice of not paying people who "have a deficiency of the English language".
In a complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991, James Ajibola has alleged that his former employer, BGS Security Ltd (BGSS) hired him in July 2024, but paid him nothing for around 230 hours of work guarding shops in Dublin city centre before he eventually quit last September.
Mr Ajibola said yesterday he was told by a colleague that he would have to "beg" the company for his wages. He said he was aware of a number of other workers in a similar position to him.
The company failed to appear before the Workplace Relations Commission earlier this week for a hearing into Mr Ajibola's statutory complaint today at the WRC.
Having delayed the opening of the case to see whether a representative would appear, an adjudicator proceeded to hear the worker's sworn evidence after satisfying herself the company was properly on notice.
Mr Ajibola said he worked one shift for BGSS on 30 July last year, but was not paid when he expected to be in early August. He was then told by a manager there was a "mistake" with his Revenue record, which stated that pay was weekly, as the firm paid monthly, he said.
He said his rate of pay was meant to be €14.50 an hour and that he had worked some 230 hours for the firm - leaving him short around €3,400, accounting for Sundays and public holidays.
"Because it's just a day, they said they would pay the August [wages] and the one day I’d done in July. I worked through the month of August, but when it elapsed, nothing was paid," Mr Ajibola said.
Mr Ajibola told the tribunal he worked a mix of day and night shifts as a security guard at various shops in the Dublin area as an employee of BGSS.
The client sites included a Spar on Dame Street and a Supervalu on Aston Quay, as well as the Great Outdoors sports shop on George’s Street in Dublin 2, and other convenience stores in Finglas and Lucan.
He said that other security workers he met on the job would "tell me they worked in this company [BGSS] and they will not pay you".
"So I rang the manager to express my fear; this is what I’m hearing people say," Mr Ajibola said. The response was "That’s a lie," he said, with an assurance that the firm "will definitely pay".
"So I gave the benefit of the doubt, but when August elapsed and I didn’t get paid, my fear grew," he said.
He told the tribunal he decided to resign and texted his manager on 10 September 2024 to tell him he was quitting.
Mr Ajibola said he spoke to one of the workers who had trained him in about his situation. "He said I need to beg them for them to pay me," he said.
His evidence was that he received payslips indicating that wages had been paid in respect of his work in July, August and September 2024, and that the information in these had been uploaded to his Revenue account by the employer.
"But you didn’t receive any money?" adjudicator Patricia Owens asked him. The complainant confirmed this.
Ms Owens noted that there had been a message from a company director to staff apologising for a payroll delay in September and stating that the company had been "facing late payments".
Mr Ajibola's reply to that was: "Note that I have never received the pay for July, nor August, never mind the wages for September," she stated, reading from the correspondence.
"The problem is, you become incapacitated. I started begging them," Mr Ajibola said.
"People who have a deficiency of the English language, they will not pay them," he said of the firm.
However, his evidence was that the firm had "strategic staff" who had been employed there for six to seven years, who were paid.
"So they pay core staff?" Ms Owens asked.
"They just paid one guy yesterday, the 22nd, for the salary of December," Mr Ajibola said.
Ms Owens told Mr Ajibola he would have her decision within "the next couple of weeks".
"If you’re dealing with a company that for some reason doesn't want to engage, they could still hold out, so there is a mechanism to have a decision of an adjudication officer enforced by law," she said.
