The Workplace Relations Commission has awarded another €10,000 to a Wexford County Council employee after ruling that he continued to suffer penalisation for making a safety complaint even after it ordered the council to pay him €20,000 for the same treatment last year.
The worker, Patrick O’Connor, previously told the WRC that a colleague had strangled him with a seatbelt on one occasion and threatened to “sort [him] out” on another – with the employment tribunal deciding the council had failed to investigate the matter in a timely fashion and that he had suffered penalisation for making the complaint.
In a decision on a second complaint brought by Mr O’Connor under the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act 2005, the tribunal found that the worker had continued to suffer from ostracisation and penalisation – calling it “unacceptable” that the council would “sit on its hands” in dealing with the matter.
Giving evidence on his previous complaint in March 2023, Mr O’Connor said a colleague of his, Mr F, assaulted him in a council vehicle in November 2019 by wrapping a seatbelt around his neck and strangling him with it.
When their paths crossed again in July 2021 – at the 1798 Rebellion centre at Vinegar Hill in Enniscorthy – he said the Mr F came at him “with his fist clenched and his voice raised, saying that I’d better shut my mouth or he’d shut it for me and stop talking about him”.
His representative in the original case, Siptu official Ger Malone, said her client had been “ostracised” and “continues to be ostracised” on foot of making an official complaint.
Further acts of penalisation alleged in the case were the denial of overtime shifts emptying street bins as well as cover shifts on litter patrol and in the council’s parks section. These were disputed by the county council.
The original adjudicating officer, Niamh O’Carroll, found on the basis of the oral testimony that Mr O’Connor’s role had been diminished and that he had lost overtime on foot of his complaint and awarded him €20,000 in a decision last June.
Five days after the WRC issued that decision, Mr O’Connor’s trade union lodged a new complaint alleging that the penalisation was continuing.
Wexford County Council also lodged an appeal against the first decision to the Labour Court.
Siptu official Rachel Hartery submitted that her client was still suffering “ostracisation” at work and losing overtime that was due to him on the basis of his seniority – while council management had never dealt properly with the two original incidents Mr O’Connor had complained about.
The tribunal heard Mr O’Connor had made a further complaint to council management alleging that a foreman had “shoved” him out of a pickup truck on 30 October 2022, just short of three months after he lodged his original claim at the WRC.
The foreman denied “any allegation of assault” but accepted that he did tell Mr O’Connor to get out of the truck, citing “comments” from the complainant, the council said in a submission.
Ms Hartery submitted that when she asked at a meeting in January 2023 for a copy of a statement taken from the foreman on foot of the complaint, the council’s appointed investigator “refused” give it – and that the investigation went no further.
Her client was “left in the abyss” as a result, she added.
Mr O’Connor said he was no longer being picked up for work as before, and that his colleagues “quickly disperse” when he comes into the yard. When he was assigned to work as a steward at a music festival in June 2023, he was assigned to work alone, he said.
“It is the inaction of the respondent that has brought the parties to the WRC. Resolution is what is required; the complainant does not want to keep putting in complaints,” Ms Hartery said.
Amanda Kane of the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), appearing for Wexford County Council said the investigation into the new complaint did not proceed because its investigator had fallen ill and accepted that her client “should have handled this matter better”.
However, she argued that there was “significant overlap” between the new complaint and the original complaint under appeal.
Adjudicator Roger McGrath wrote that since the council had neither concluded its investigation into the alleged health and safety incident in October 2022, nor produced the foreman as a witness, there was “nothing to contradict” Mr O’Connor’s testimony.
The failure to conclude the investigation into that matter amounted to penalisation by itself, Mr McGrath wrote. He also accepted Mr O’Connor was suffering continuing ostracisation at work.
“It is not acceptable that the respondent “sit on its hands” in relation to dealing with the issue,” he wrote.
He said the overtime issue had been dealt with “to some degree if not in its totality” – but noted that the council had failed to provide any documentation on foot of the second complaint to support its position that Mr O’Connor was not out of pocket.
Upholding a second finding of penalisation, he awarded €10,000 in compensation to Mr O’Connor.
