A vegetable processing and packaging business paid a Sunday allowance of 5 cent per hour to a minimum-wage worker who was regularly required to work 15-hour days.
At the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Adjudicator Catherine Byrne ordered Monaghan-based vegetable processing firm, Sillis Green Veg Ltd to pay Ms Aldona Pileckiene €15,000 compensation for two breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act and one breach of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act.
Ms Byrne has found that Ms Pileckiene’s working conditions relating to Sunday work and her excessively long working hours “resulted in serious contraventions” of the OWT Act.
On behalf of Ms Pileckiene, Joe Smith BL, instructed by Elena Gray of Barry Healy & Co Solicitors, told the WRC hearing that Ms Pileckiene started work at 4am and sometimes 3am, and was required to work “until finished”, meaning she regularly worked 13, 14 or 15 hours a day.
In evidence, Lithuanian national Ms Pileckiene said a busy week could see her working 65, 66 or 67 hours, and the longest she ever worked was 75 hours in a week. She added she sometimes worked 17 or 18 hours a day.
In her ruling, Ms Byrne ordered Sillis Green Veg to pay Ms Pileckiene €10,000 over its failure to prevent her from working in excess of 48 hours a week.
Ms Byrne said it was “most disturbing” that Ms Pileckiene persistently asked not to be rostered for such long hours.
Ms Byrne stated Ms Pileckiene - who worked for the firm from 2013 to March 2020 - had family responsibilities and was suffering from a hernia.
"Not surprisingly, her illness and her long hours at work were making her feel depressed," she added.
Ms Byrne pointed out that all the hours were paid at the minimum rate of €10.10, apart from the 5 cent allowance per hour on Sundays, with no overtime premium.
Ms Byrne said no evidence was given of any action taken by the employer to ensure that the health of employees was not put at risk due to long hours.
Sunday allowance
The business employs 58 people, the majority of whom are from abroad, and the WRC heard Ms Pileckiene’s job was to clean vegetables.
In response to the firm’s failure to pay a reasonable Sunday allowance, Ms Byrne directed Sillis Green Veg to pay Ms Pileckiene €2,000.
Payroll Manager with the firm, Mairéad Flanagan told the hearing that to compensate for working on Sundays, employees receive an additional five cents per hour.
Under cross-examination from Mr Smith, Ms Flanagan described the Sunday premium of 5 cents per hour as “not as fair as it could be.”
In relation to Ms Pileckiene’s claim of being penalised under the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act, Mr Smith stated that when Ms Pileckiene advised her managers that she had a hernia and she was depressed, she was told that she had to continue to work.
In her findings on this aspect of her claim, Ms Byrne ordered the firm to pay Ms Pileckiene €3,000 after finding she was penalised “when she was intimidated into continuing to work excessively long hours”.
Ms Byrne stated Ms Pileckiene was not dismissed or threatened with dismissal, but was told that she could leave if she did not accept the long hours she was required to work.
She stated the failure to give any consideration to Ms Pileckiene’s request to work 40 hours a week, and being told where the door is, “seems to me to meet the definition of intimidation as intended by the Health & Safety Act”.
Ms Byrne said Ms Pileckiene was attempting to exert her entitlement to safer working conditions.
“It is not an easy decision for a foreign national in a rural town to move jobs and the effect of telling her that she could leave if she wasn’t happy was effectively telling her that she had very little choice but to keep working.
“She did not contemplate simply going home after working eight hours, but, at a risk to her health and welfare, she continued to work up to 15 hours a day.”
At hearing, the firm stated Ms Pileckiene never made a complaint under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, and if a complaint had been made, the firm would have investigated it immediately and thoroughly.
