The new management of a Dublin restaurant group embarked on a “blinkered, cynical process” to oust its founder and his three sons from the business using the Covid-19 pandemic as cover, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has ruled.
An adjudicator at the employment tribunal made the remark in awarding over €61,000 to Stephen Hanley, the third son of PBR Restaurants Ltd founder Pádraic Hanley to win compensation for unfair dismissal on foot of what their lawyers called a “targeted campaign” to get them out of the firm after it was bought out of examinership in December 2019 by a new investor.
The company operates the Fish Shack restaurant chain and a fish processing operation in Northern Ireland. It also ran Ouzos in Dalkey and Kelly & Coopers in Blackrock before they were broken off and sold during the examinership process.
Stephen Hanley, who was operations manager at the company, was the longest-serving of the Hanley sons involved in the company and has secured a higher award than his two brothers and father combined after the tribunal concluded his rights under working time legislation had also been breached.
His case went on last year after talks aimed at resolving the legal dispute between the Hanley family and the new owners broke down last spring.
Stephen Hanley told the WRC last year that following the takeover, relations “immediately deteriorated” as the new investors “reneged” on an alleged deal which would allow the family to build back up to becoming 50 per cent shareholders in the business.
The family members were laid off with other staff in March 2020 and never returned to work, even when other staff were brought back, the tribunal heard.
The covert manner in which both reports were compiled and withheld copper fastens my views
Mr Hanley said that trading projections drawn up for the new management, cited as a basis for management redundancies, had used figures for the “slow” months of January and February to come to earnings projections for the full year.
He said he had been told in redundancy consultation meetings that he could apply for a role paying €14 an hour based in Malahide — earnings he said would be consumed after tax by a return taxi fare to his home in Stillorgan if he had to work a late shift, as his company car was also taken away.
Stephen Hanley, his brothers David and Phillip Hanley along with their father Pádraic were the occupants of four of the five jobs identified in a report as being at risk of redundancy — though the four family members were the only ones to be made redundant, company director Ian Higgins told the tribunal.
“Those were the roles that had to go and they happened to be the Hanley family. It’s usually the case in a family business that the top roles would be held by family members,” said the company’s solicitor, Gavin Comiskey of Peninsula Business Services, who added that the redundancy process employed by the firm was “solid”.
Michael Kinsley, appearing for Stephen Hanley, submitted that the dismissals had “nothing to do with redundancy”.
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Adjudicator Aideen Collard wrote in her decision that the “inescapable conclusion” was that the new management “utilised the Covid-19 pandemic to embark upon a blinkered, cynical process to make the complainant and the other three members of the Hanley family redundant in a sham redundancy process”.
Among other factors, she found that the reports produced by the respondent were “skewed” towards supporting a redundancy programme and cutting management — with the second one making a “further leap” of identifying only the roles held by the four Hanley family members and one other manager for redundancy risk.
“Both reports relied upon off-season figures to indicate a future loss, when in fact it is common case that the Fish Shack side of the business had been profitable and the successful Dún Laoghaire Pier unit was only open during the summer months,” she added.
“The covert manner in which both reports were compiled and withheld copper fastens my views,” she wrote.
Ruling Stephen Hanley’s dismissal unfair, she awarded him €46,385, a year’s pay, for loss of earnings — adding that this was to be paid on top of the €13,800 statutory redundancy lump sum he got on dismissal.
Ms Collard also considered further alleged breaches of employment law under the Organisation of Working Time Act and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994.
The company did not contest Mr Hanley’s evidence that he worked 12-hour days for five to six days a week between December 2019 and March 2020, but said he was in control of his working hours.
Both reports relied upon off-season figures to indicate a future loss, when in fact it is common case that the Fish Shack side of the business had been profitable and the successful Dún Laoghaire Pier unit was only open during the summer months
Mr Hanley maintained he came under pressure to do “an enormous amount of work” before lay-off.
Ms Collard rejected the new management’s argument that although Mr Hanley was in control of his own working hours, noting emails from them “clearly requiring [him] to undertake new additional duties to his pre-existing role”. She awarded Mr Hanley 13 weeks’ pay, €11,596, for the working time breach.
She also awarded four weeks’ pay, €3,568, for the non-provision of written terms of employment when Mr Hanley’s duties changed.
The total sum awarded in Stephen Hanley’s case was €61,549. His older brother David Hanley secured €20,000 for unfair dismissal in March, while his younger brother was awarded €30,000.
Their father also secured €5,500 for a breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act in 2021, but failed in his dismissal claim, as he had not built up the 12 months’ service as an employee required to be protected by the Unfair Dismissals Act after ceding control of the company.
The decision brings the total awards made by the WRC to members of the Hanley family in the dispute to over €117,049. Coupled with an award for €13,269 for constructive dismissal to the company’s former development chef last September, PBR Restaurants Ltd has been ordered to pay €130,318 to former employees who accused it of unfairly sacking them in the wake of the buyout.
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