Former employer seeks complete disavowal of complaints.

An ex-deli assistant filed complaints against her former employer under the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005. 

Background

The complainant was originally from Lithuania, but commenced her employment as a deli assistant on the 23rd of September 2003. She resigned after just over thirteen years’ of service, as she considered her working conditions to be untenable.

The complainant was allegedly bullied, excluded and isolated by work colleagues and members of management alike. The bullying consisted of (but was not limited to): work colleagues instructing her to carry out tasks, ignoring her, shouting at her, intimidating behaviour, banging trays, throwing knives, defaming her, refusing to talk to her and leaving the deli in a state of filth.

It was submitted that the complainant had been making informal complaints to the respondent from 2009 onwards, but that she was repeatedly advised just to ‘try not to mind them’. Numerous non-specific instances of the complainant bringing her issues to management were cited to the court, yet the complainant continued to be undermined in the workplace. It was submitted that members of management only began to take the complainant more seriously after she had been hospitalised due to stress.

The complainant believes that her maltreatment was based solely on the fact that she is a non-national. Examples of this racial bias were given to the court, and included (but were not limited to): providing the complainant with a heavier workload than Irish workers, blaming the complainant for issues when Irish workers would be at fault, requiring the complainant to undertake additional duties (not required of the Irish staff), refusing the complainant flexibility of working hours despite making efforts to accommodate Irish staff and repeatedly failing to address the bullying allegations of the complainant.

It was submitted that the respondent failed to create a clean and safe work environment, and that the claimant was penalised for photographing said unsafe workplace. On the 23rd of March 2016, a work colleague told the complainant that she would be ‘sacked’ if she did not stop taking photographs of the work area. Furthermore, on the 3rd of April 2016 the complainant’s line manager shouted at her, stating: ‘you have to stop taking those pictures and complaining to me’. Following this, the complainant became absent from work and was diagnosed with a chronic stress reaction. She was also declared unfit for work due to anxiety, stress and depression.

The respondent wrote to the complainant to organise a meeting in regard to all of the recent havoc on the 12th of April 2016. The complainant took this opportunity to submit a letter of her grievances on the 26th of September, but she had become so daunted by the prospect of returning to work that she subsequently furnished the respondent with a letter of resignation on the 26th of October 2016.

The respondent reminded the court that the claimant had tendered her resignation within one month of the submission of the formal grievance document, despite the fact that the respondent had been organising an independent investigation into the matter, and had informed the complainant of the same. It was submitted on the respondent’s behalf that he had been seeking complete disavowal of both complaints, and had requested that the court find the claims to be both frivolous and vexatious.

Decision

It was noted that in order for a complaint to be frivolous it must be of no real purpose or value, and in order for a complaint to be vexatious it must have been filed solely for the detriment of the respondent. Given that the complainant had been employed by the respondent for some thirteen years, and had been experiencing issues for over seven, the claims were found neither frivolous nor vexatious.

The complaints under the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2004 were deemed not well-founded, as the complainant had failed to establish a prima facie case of discriminatory constructive dismissal. However, the complaint under the Safety, Health & Welfare at Word Act 2005 was deemed well founded, and the respondent was ordered to pay the complainant a sum of €2,500 in compensation.