A Co Cavan mushroom farmer is facing a compensation bill of more than €350,000 after an Employment Appeals Tribunal found his firing of foreign workers was "flagrantly unfair".
Eamonn Murray, trading as Kilnaleck Mushrooms, Carrickacroy, Crosserlough, claimed 17 immigrant workers had walked off the job but the tribunal found they had been dismissed for joining a trade union.
The tribunal made the maximum compensation awards to the mushroom pickers, which meant €26,000 - the equivalent of two years wages - for each of the 13 workers who pursued their claim.
The 13 were also awarded up to €1,400 in holiday pay, €700 in bank holiday pay and €250 for a week's notice pay.
Four of the workers did not turn up for the hearing and could not be contacted afterwards so their claim failed for "want of prosecution".
If the four had pursued their claim it would have meant further compensation awards totalling more than €100,000.
The tribunal said all the workers were foreign nationals with a limited command of English. Many were brought to Ireland specifically to work at mushroom-picking.
"Given that the dismissals were flagrantly unfair we are of the view that it would be just and equitable, having regard to all the circumstances, to make the maximum awards in all cases," the tribunal said in its determination yesterday.
Siptu had argued that the compensation awards should be based on the statutory minimum wage which, the tribunal said, given the hours the pickers worked, would have been four times their actual payments.
"We do not accept that argument," the tribunal said. "Their actual financial loss derives from the actual payments they received, which both sides agreed was €250 a week. Our awards are based on that figure." The tribunal said the workers had left the mushroom farm on January 10th last "in the course of a dispute affecting work practices".
A Siptu official met Mr Murray the next day and he told her the workers had all walked out and left him and he had to "move on".
The official said he told her: "Those people have nothing to do with me now, they're with Siptu. If they want to work let Siptu find them jobs."
She asked did that mean he was dismissing them, and she said he replied: "They're not with me now, they're with Siptu."
Originally Mr Murray had claimed the workers were all self-employed contractors and denied they were employees. However, before the hearing there was a social welfare finding that they were in insurable employment and Mr Murray did not pursue the point.
The tribunal dismissed Mr Murray's claim that the workers had walked out and left him to "deal with an emergency". It said: "We find that their walk-out was not a mass resignation and that they were dismissed the following day."