The Complainant commenced employment as a mechanic with the Respondent in September 2013.  His employment was terminated on the 13th of September 2019. When the Complainant had brought his case to the Adjudication Officer, it became apparent that the Complainant had not used the correct name for the Respondent.

The Adjudication Officer stated that it was clear that in order for an Adjudication Officer to grant leave to change the name of the Respondent, it must first be established that there had been an inadvertence on the part of the Complainant in terms of the failure to identify the correct Respondent when the proceedings were instituted, and secondly, that to amend the name of the Respondent should not result in an injustice being done to the proposed Respondent. However, the Adjudication Officer decided that he was satisfied that by granting leave for the Complainant to change the name of the Respondent would not result in any injustice or prejudice to the proposed Respondent.  The Respondent, present at the hearing, stated that he had no objection to changing the name on the Complaint Form to the correct legal name of the Complainant’s employer.

The Complainant submitted that when he first started working for the Respondent, he had his own business working in tandem but as the Respondent’s company grew the Complainant could no longer continue his own business and threw his lot in with the Respondent, becoming a full-time mechanic with the company.  He worked hard for the Respondent, often working into the night to have coaches ready for the morning.

The Complainant submitted that he was never given a contract of employment, he was poorly paid and subject to unwarranted deductions from his pay. From 2017 on the Complainant felt his work was being undermined deliberately by management. The Complainant added further that he was being put under undue pressure by his employer. By mid to late 2019, the situation had deteriorated, and the Complainant was eventually dismissed in September 2019.  The Complainant submitted that the Respondent failed to undertake fair and formal procedures such as a grievance process to call into question the conduct of the employee.

The Respondent stated that the Complainant was employed in 2013 as a mechanic and he always found him good to work with. However, in the last two years there had been a lot of complaints about his work and there had been numerous emails sent to the Complainant outlining these problems.  The Respondent stated that he had met with the Complainant on several occasions to discuss his performance as a mechanic and stated that he had given the Complainant some verbal warnings and a written warning.

However, it was eventually decided it would be best to let the Complainant go. The Respondent stated that he offered the Complainant €10,000 as a settlement for his termination which was accepted by the Complainant. The Respondent accepted that the correct procedures had not been followed correctly by the company in their dealings with the Complainant but that the payment of €10,000 was fair compensation in the circumstances.

In their findings, the Adjudication Officer highlighted that the procedures required to ensure fairness in this case were totally lacking, and that this was agreed by the Respondent. The substantive issue in this case leading to the dismissal was the Complainant’s poor performance.

However, no evidence was adduced to support the contention that the Complainant’s performance in the period leading up to his dismissal was poor. Therefore, the Adjudication Officer ruled that this case was an unfair dismissal.  After taking into account the ex-gratia payment that was made to the Respondent, the Adjudication Officer awarded the Complainant the sum of €3,922.47.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2021/june/adj-00026854.html