A worker at hurling helmet company Mycro has won over €28,000 for penalisation and disability discrimination after his complaints about operating cutting equipment used for making face guards led to him being laid off without pay.
The worker, 25-year veteran employee Trevor O’Mahony, said he was left in “agony” from operating a cutting machine and had medical advice not to strain his back – only to be told after a few months of reduced hours and alternative duties that if he couldn’t work the cutter he would have to go home.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has now ordered Mycro Sportsgear Ltd to pay Mr O’Mahony one year’s salary in compensation for penalisation under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and a further six months’ pay in compensation for disability discrimination for a failure to provide reasonable accommodation at work.
The tribunal found it had been an act of penalisation to place Mr O’Mahony on layoff without pay in January 2022, but rejected his claim that the company had sacked him.
The claims had been denied by the company.
Mr O’Mahony said in evidence that he had raised the difficulties he was having with the cutting machine in July and September 2021, and that he had sent the company links to websites in the hope that a replacement could be bought.
He texted his boss on 12 October that year to say his doctor had advised him not to do work that “repeatedly strains my back” and asked to cut his working hours, the WRC was told.
He said he went back to work doing alternative work the same month and went to physiotherapy in November that year, paid for by the firm.
However, the following January, Mr O’Mahony said the company’s general manager, Ronan Curran, told him that he would have to go home unless he could work on producing face guards.
The complainant’s evidence was that Mr Curran told him students in on work experience could carry out the tasks he was doing at the time and said he was “sorry”.
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Mr O’Mahony said his response to that was: “Sorry won’t pay the mortgage.”
When Mr O’Mahony sought a letter confirming dismissal for an illness benefit application, the company told him the layoff was a “temporary” measure and that the job was there for him “whenever you decide to come back”.
“You know you haven’t been sacked,” the email continued.
Mr Curran, the general manager, said he never told Mr O’Mahony he had been dismissed and that the complainant had not resigned either – adding that medical certs presented by the complainant suggested his back was “still at him”.
“I let him go because he won’t do the work,” Mr Curran said, later stating: “I left him go temporarily because he said he cannot do the work.”
An assistant manager, Thomas Murray, said the cutting equipment Mr O’Mahony had complained about had been in use at the company for the last 20 years and “generally worked fine”.
He said he had been unable to source a replacement because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A replacement was finally sourced in December 2021.
WRC adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer said she found it “inconceivable” that it had taken five months to source the equipment.
She called it “implausible” that Mr O’Mahony was then put on layoff “without any discussion or medical opinion” on providing reasonable accommodation to him in his work.
Ms Glazier-Farmer found that the failure to give accommodation was discrimination on the grounds of disability, but rejected a further claim of victimisation and found that no discriminatory dismissal had taken place.
She also found the layoff amounted to whistleblower penalisation in breach of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, as Mr O’Mahony’s complaints about the cutting equipment were a protected disclosure for which he had suffered a detriment.
Ms Glazier-Farmer said Mr Curran’s comments about work experience students, and a statement to the tribunal that he “let [the complainant] go because he won’t do the work” were an indication of the company’s “motive” in the layoff.
She awarded €9,427.60 – six months’ pay – for the disability discrimination in breach of the Employment Equality Act, along with €18,855.20 – a year’s pay – for the health and safety penalisation.
A further award of €414.40 for a breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act over non-payment for two public holidays brought the total orders against Mycro Sportsgear Ltd to €28,697.20.
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