A college lecturer was recently awarded €45,000 by the Employment Appeals Tribunal because he was denied fair procedures.
The employee began as an assistant lecturer in the employer’s computing school in August 1987. In summer 1999 the employee assaulted a colleague during a dispute about the mark to be awarded to a student he was supervising. As a result he was suspended without pay for the month of August, and a final written warning put on his personnel file.
Following the incident the relationship between the employer and the employee deteriorated. The new Head of the School of Computer Applications (HS) scheduled several meetings with the employee to discuss his work including his attendance. In March 2002 the employee would not respond to questions from HS about his work including his attendance and he walked out of the meeting stating that these were personal/disciplinary matters that required the attendance of a trade union representative. The Tribunal was satisfied that HS was entitled to enquire about aspects of the employee’s work including his attendance pattern as operational matters relevant to his responsibilities as Head of School.
HS made further unsuccessful attempts during April 2002 to meet the employee. HS did not use the disciplinary procedure for the failure of the employee to attend scheduled meetings and instead wrote to the President setting out his difficulties with the employee.
It was open to the President to advise HS to deal with the matter in accordance with the disciplinary procedure. The President did not do so but instead wrote to the employee on a number of occasions instructing him to meet HS on various dates in May to address matters of concern regarding the employee’s work. The employee sent these letters, some unopened, to a politician and his trade union.
The President warned the employee in his letters about the serious consequences of his continuing refusal to engage with HS. The President subsequently suspended the employee and dismissed him in a letter in June. The President did not invoke the disciplinary procedure and no representative of the respondent met the employee’s trade union in advance of the dismissal despite a request from the trade union for relevant information and a meeting. He contended that there was no dismissal because the employee had repudiated his contract of employment and thereby effected the termination of his employment. The behaviour of the employee in not attending meetings and not responding to letters was not a basis for denying him fair procedures include his right to trade union representation in advance of a dismissal decision and his right to a formal appeal procedure. Accordingly, the Tribunal found that the employee was unfavourably dismissed.
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