Former kitchen manager at coffee chain 3FE claims redundancy not ‘genuine’

A former kitchen manager at coffee chain 3FE claims its management gave him just 80 minutes to decide whether he wanted to leave the company or take a €15,000 salary cut.

In a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, Ralph Utto told the Workplace Relations Commission on Tuesday that a new head chef was hired in to do his former duties just weeks before he was made redundant in November 2022.

“It’s just my job under a different name,” he told the hearing.

Mr Utto’s complaint is denied by the coffee chain, with its HR consultant Karen Talbot stating that Mr Utto’s €50,000-a-year job as food production manager “was no longer required by the business” after the appointment of a new head chef on €60,000 a year.

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Mr Utto had refused offers to take an alternative job as lead chef at one of its cafe kitchens earning €35,000, Ms Talbot said.

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Giving evidence, 3FE’s finance director Ciarán Goff said: “Our coffee programme – I’m going to say it – is the best in Dublin, but our food programme isn’t. We felt a new structure with a new hierarchy was going to be needed. We decided to bring in a head chef.”

“We did consider Ralph for the role but unfortunately the skillset wasn’t there,” the witness said.

The only options for Mr Utto were one of two vacancies for lead chefs running cafe kitchens on the €35,000 salary, Mr Goff said.

“I explained the direction we were going in – I would say I explained fully what the lead chef roles would be; the fact there’d be a lower status,” Mr Goff said of a meeting with Mr Utto on Monday, 14th November, last year.

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Mr Utto then said he “needed to consider it” and later looked for time off, Mr Goff said.

“This is not a genuine redundancy… Please note I am open to offers of employment at the same level as my current role,” wrote the complainant in an email later that week which was opened to the hearing.

“I understood from Ralph’s letter that he was quite insulted at being offered a lower-paid role,” Mr Goff said.

Mr Utto said Mr Goff had looked for his position on a transfer to the lower-paid role by lunchtime that Friday, before revising the deadline to the close of business after his request for the job descriptions.

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“I asked for information. That information was sent at 16.10, giving me a total of one hour twenty minutes to make what I would consider a life-changing decision,” Mr Utto said.

Notice of termination came just after 7pm that evening, he said.

“I am a head chef. I have proved myself in a number of jobs,” he said, arguing that if there was a redundancy situation he ought to have been placed in a pool with the new head chef.

The adjudicator, Mr Stokes, gave the parties two weeks for further submissions, after which he said he would begin drafting his decision.