A CONSTRUCTIVE dismissal case taken by a former Unicef Ireland employee has been rejected by the Employment Appeals Tribunal.
Orla Church, from Beaumont, Dublin worked as a greeting cards and gift co-ordinator with the charity. She claimed she began having difficulties with two work colleagues in 2006 and started to feel undermined and excluded.
Unicef employed an external person to investigate her complaints but the allegations were not upheld.
She was later warned about her punctuality and for e-mailing an incoming executive director while the director still worked at a different organisation. She resigned from the company last June, claiming high levels of stress.
The tribunal, chaired by Mark O’Connell, rejected the claim under the Unfair Dismissals Acts. “The tribunal, having carefully considered all the evidence, does not believe that the treatment of Ms Church, while in some ways deficient, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the problem first arising, amounted to mistreatment which would justify her decision to resign from her position,” it said in a decision published yesterday. It also found Ms Church had failed to show she had suffered any loss.
In another decision published yesterday, the tribunal rejected a claim taken against the Rehab Group and RehabCare.
Victor Ajayi, Chancery Place, Dublin, was a home-support worker under the Slán Abhaile scheme.
He had applied for a post of team leader but did not receive it and said he had heard he would never receive the job, no matter how good he was.
The manager with responsibility for home-based services told the tribunal that seven clients out of 18 had lodged complaints about Mr Ajayi, mainly concerning punctuality and the manner in which he spoke to clients. He was suspended in October 2006 and dismissed last June.
