Business

Iceland worker claims personal threats following strike plans

Jeanette Joyce alleges she was targeted for ‘harassment and bullying’ by businessman because she was a trade union shop steward

Iceland. File photograph: Getty

Wed Jun 12 2024 - 11:43

A former Iceland worker has told a tribunal the then-owner of its Irish stores, Naeem Maniar, personally threatened her with a lawsuit targeting her property if she and her colleagues went on strike.

She told the Workplace Relations Commission on Tuesday that she received a series of late-night texts from the businessman in which he claimed her trade union was “playing dirty and seeking to attack me personally” and that it was circulating “false news and propaganda about him”.

In a complaint under the Employees (Provision of Information and Consultation) Act 2006 against Metron Stores Ltd trading as Iceland (in liquidation) the worker, Jeanette Joyce, said she was targeted for “harassment and bullying” by the businessman because she was a trade union shop steward.

She also told the tribunal she suffered further acts of penalisation in the wake of the strike by workers at Iceland’s store in Coolock, Dublin 17, when her wages were held up and she was served with legal papers at work referring to recovering damages for “unlawful industrial action”.

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Giving sworn evidence to the employment tribunal yesterday (TUES), Ms Joyce said she became a shop steward when a branch of the Independent Workers’ Union (IWU) formed at their workplace, and younger staff in their teens turned to her and a colleague “as two of the older ones”.

Ms Joyce, who said she was earning the €11.30-an-hour minimum wage in place at the time, said she began to have issues with her own wages in March, 2023. Hours were cut at the Coolock store, and the air conditioning on the premises was turned off, she said. “We then decided to take strike action, and that’s when my problems started,” she said.

Upon being served notice of the planned strike, Metron took the position the action was “illegal”, Ms Joyce said.

On May 18th last year, the day before industrial action at the Coolock store, Mr Maniar came to the shop and spent three hours talking to the shop stewards “to see would we call off the strike”, Ms Joyce explained.

“He said he wanted to tell us his life story,” Ms Joyce said, explaining that Mr Maniar embarked on giving an account of his business career since the age of seven. “I wanted to address issues in the shops,” Ms Joyce said.

Mr Maniar replied that there were “no issues” and that “everyone was paid”. She said Mr Maniar also undertook during their conversation to switch the air conditioning back on. “He didn’t,” she said.

“He felt he was being slandered by the IWU. He went for me, maybe, because I was more outspoken in the shop,” Ms Joyce told the WRC. “He had planned to sue the IWU, and if they didn’t pay, he was suing me,” Ms Joyce said. The businessman’s words to her were: “I will come after your property,” she said in evidence.

Between 6.17pm that evening until around midnight, Mr Maniar sent WhatsApp messages with Ms Joyce, suggesting other stores had cancelled their strike plans and stating that he hoped the Coolock strike would be called off – asking her to respond to him by 10pm, which she regarded as a “deadline”, the tribunal heard.

Around midnight that night, Mr Maniar texted her again, referring to a social media post by the IWU on the dispute.

“How is it fair, Jeanette, to name me personally in circumstances where this can be used to bully my children?” the businessman wrote in the text, which was read into evidence by Ms Joyce.

“I appreciate you have a personal right to join any union; but [I] cannot admit to make this a personal attack on me,” Mr Maniar continued.

“What I see is that from the day the announcement was made that Iceland is changing hands, the IWU have circulated attacks, false news and propaganda with the sole aim of recruiting members and collecting money for their personal use with no accountability or transparency.

“I am being used as a football to kick around by certain people in the IWU for their personal agenda,” Mr Maniar wrote.

Ms Joyce wrote back the following morning objecting to being contacted so late, stating: “I have never bullied anyone’s children. That is extremely unfair.”

She told the businessman that an online fundraiser he had referred to was a strike fund to cover the wages of the workers who participated in the industrial action. “The majority came back and said they want to strike,” she added.

In further texts, Mr Maniar apologised and said: “I was angry that the IWU are playing dirty and seeking to attack me personally.” He then apologised, the tribunal heard.

Ms Joyce asked him to take up any issues he had with the IWU’s social media activity directly with the trade union, and the strike at the Coolock store went ahead that day, Friday, May 19th, 2023, the WRC heard.

Ms Joyce said she was approached at work the following Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023, and handed an envelope containing what she understood to be a High Court plenary summons naming her, two other union reps and the IWU and referring to recovering “aggravated or exemplary damages for unlawful industrial action”.

When pay-day came that Friday, Ms Joyce said, although wages came through for some workers despite a delay explained as a “technical issue”, neither she nor the other Coolock shop steward received the bank transfer.

When she sent an email querying the matter with the company’s payroll department, Ms Joyce told the tribunal she received messages back repeatedly insisting the money – a sum of €265.45 net wages – had been sent.

Having emailed throughout the weekend – even sending screenshots of her bank account to the payroll email address, pointing out that the funds had not arrived, the sender of the emails told her: “Jeanette, I need you to please stop playing games. You’re aware the funds are in your account since Friday,” Ms Joyce said, quoting from the correspondence.

“If you are unhappy… please go and find another job,” the email read. “Your lies and deliberate manipulative action are only seeking to harm my job and the rest of your colleagues. If you’re in such a bad place, why do you continue to show up to work?” the letter continued.

The pay arrived into her bank account two to three weeks later, Ms Joyce said. She later lodged a grievance alleging she had been subjected to “harassment and bullying” by Mr Maniar and that she had been “slandered” in the payroll emails, but nothing came of it before the supermarket went out of business, Ms Joyce added.

“I was just very on edge, waiting for a contract to be cut, hours to be cut – I felt under the microscope,” Ms Joyce said of the weeks following the strike.

The company’s liquidator did not attend the hearing, having written to the WRC stating that it was “not familiar with the background to this complaint and not in a position to assist”.

Ms Joyce is one of around 35 ex-Iceland staff who had employment rights complaints referred to the WRC by the IWU.

Adjudicator Elizabeth Spelman is to deliver her decision on Ms Joyce’s case in writing to the parties in due course. Further hearings in the series are due to take place next week.

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