Sutton Golf Club must pay €10,000 to former barman after replacing him with students

Sutton Golf Club in north Dublin has been ordered to pay its former barman over €10,000 after replacing him with two students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Sean Soden, secured an award for €8,000 under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, along with a further €2,400 in notice pay on foot of long service at the club.

The total orders made by the tribunal were more than double a settlement offer for ten weeks’ pay from the club, worth €4,200.

Mr Soden, who represented himself at a hearing in March this year, said he had been laid off in March 2020 “due to Covid”.

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He had worked at the club as a casual bartender since 2008, doing variable hours of between 20 and 50 hours a week, he said.

Having “repeatedly enquired” about a return to work in 2021, Mr Soden said he “discovered that students had been taken on to do his work”.

This was accepted by the golf club, which said two students had been recruited for the casual bar work Mr Soden had performed.

Mr Soden said he got a letter from the club’s general manager in June 2022 stating that he was “no longer employed”.

He said he had received no severance pay and had been left without either a redundancy payment or notice pay.

The golf club, which was represented by barrister Mary-Paula Guinness, conceded that there had been an unfair dismissal and a failure to pay statutory notice – but maintained that the offer for 10 weeks’ pay to Mr Soden “resolved” both matters.

Ms Guinness submitted that Mr Soden had made “no efforts at mitigation for the loss of employment”, adding that her client’s understanding was that the complainant was “under the care of his GP since early 2022 and most likely on disability benefit”.

“He was clearly, in their view, medically unfit for work and as such no restitution for an unfair dismissal could legally be warranted,” Ms Guinness added.

As the claimant had been dismissed, there could be “no valid second complaint for redundancy”, counsel added.

The general manager’s evidence was that Mr Soden had stated that he was “not available for work” in May 2021 as he was “caring for his mother”, a position the manager said had been repeated later that year.

Under cross-examination, Mr Soden said he had been on disability pay since June 2022 and was “unavailable for work”.

He added that he had tried to get work, but his age went against him.

Adjudicator Michael McEntee wrote in a decision published on Wednesday that Mr Soden was entitled to have the loss of any redundancy entitlements factored into a dismissal award.

The adjudicator found that the exact calculation was “complicated by the seasonal work pattern” and absences from December 2019 onward, adding that the complainant had been unclear on whether he had been receiving Carer’s Allowance – which would have counted towards reckonable service – at relevant times.

Mr McEntee said that only the records of the Department of Social Protection’s redundancy section could be definitive on the matter, but Mr Soden had raised “a very strong inference” that he was due a payment because of his long service.

“No resignation was ever forthcoming and the period from December 2019 to March 2020 was not such as to break his service,” Mr McEntee added.

The adjudicator estimated the redundancy lump sum due to Mr Soden would total “around €8,000″ and ordered the golf club to pay that sum as redress for financial loss under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.

Mr McEntee said the settlement offer from the club could be deducted from this sum if it had already been paid.

The adjudicator ordered the club to pay a further €2,400, eight weeks’ pay calculated on the basis of an average of €300 a week, bringing the total orders against Sutton Golf Club to €10,400.

Further complaints by Mr Soden under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967 and the Payment of Wages Act 1991 were dismissed as duplicates of the other two claims.