Background:

The Complainant had been employed as a general operative with the Respondent since February 2019. She was on maternity leave from 3 October 2021 to 12 April 2022. Her partner is also an employee of the Respondent. After having taken her statutory maternity leave, the Complainant applied to the Respondent to be switched from a weekday to a weekend shift pattern. She did so to facilitate her and her partner’s plan to split their parental responsibilities for childcare, as her partner worked the same weekday shift as the Complainant. The Respondent sent the Complainant correspondence which indicated that the Complainant would be facilitated with such a pattern on a “trial basis”. However, shortly after issuing this correspondence, the Respondent contacted the Complainant again and said that this would not be possible.

The Respondent denied that any correspondence issued to the Complainant constituted a contract or an “offer” in a legal, contractual sense. The Respondent claimed that after having explored the possibility of facilitating the Complainant with a weekend shift pattern, it found that doing so would have presented industrial relations difficulties with the trade union collectively representing the Respondent’s employees (a different trade union than that which the Complainant belonged and was represented at the hearing). The Respondent understood that had an additional weekend shift been advertised, workers of more seniority than the Complainant would have preferred to take the shift, and offering it to the Complainant would have created an industrial relations dispute. The Respondent also noted that the initial correspondence on the weekend shift indicated it was a trial period and could be terminated with two weeks’ notice.

Outcome:

The Adjudication Officer, noting the high bar required for a Complainant to succeed in a claim of constructive dismissal, found the Complainant’s complaint not well founded. The Adjudication Officer noted the unfortunate circumstances, but did not find the Respondent’s behaviour so unreasonable that it constituted a termination of their employment contract with the Complainant. It was also noted that the Complainant failed to fully exhaust all internal grievance procedures and could have further engaged with the Respondent to find an alternative arrangement.

Practical Guidance for Employers:

Employers are entitled to take many factors into account when determining reasonable accommodation for family obligations, including industrial relations matters and fairness within an organisation.

The full case is here:
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2024/january/adj-00042841.html