An Irish Rail worker who defied orders and took control of a crane when he saw that its load had became unstable – only for the load to trap another worker’s foot when he set it down – has won €12,000 for unfair dismissal.
His trade union had told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) that the worker, Liam Óg Lynch, should get his job back after acting with “great leadership and bravery” to try to bring a dangerous situation under control in March 2023.
However, in a decision published on Wednesday , Mr Lynch has been denied the order for reinstatement he had sought in a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Iarnród Éireann.
Mr Lynch, an Irish Rail employee since 2021, worked at a plant producing pre-stressed concrete sleepers for use in works on the Cork main line, the WRC heard.
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Irish Rail employment relations manager Laura Devoy told the tribunal that on March 8th, 2023, an employee of a contractor had been injured by a gantry crane which Mr Lynch had “knowingly operated without permission”.
A manager had previously identified “safety-critical issues” with Mr Lynch’s work at a meeting in November 2022, she said. The worker was instructed in February 2023 not to operate the gantry crane at the centre of the incident until further notice, Ms Devoy told the tribunal.
Mr Lynch’s trade union representative, Andrea Cleere of the Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre, told the tribunal that the work crew was short-handed on March 8th, 2023 as her client had been asked to stand in for an absent senior chargehand.
Ms Cleere said her client “sought the assistance of an experienced operator but was refused”, with a contract worker instead taking charge of the crane.
“Mr Lynch raised concerns regarding the machine operating experience of the contractor, but these fell on deaf ears,” Ms Cleere said.
She submitted that with the contract machine operator running the gantry crane it “became apparent that the load had not been properly secured”.
“Given that the only qualified operator who could work the machine was operating an unsafe load, Liam Óg Lynch, in his role as chargehand, took over the operation of the machine,” the trade union rep said.
Mr Lynch decided it was “not viable to secure the load due to the surroundings” and decided to “land the gantry load as best he could in the circumstances”.
“Landing the machine was the securest option, given the proximity of the load to the ground,” Ms Cleere submitted.
“Unfortunately, an injury occurred whereby the foot of another contractor machine operator became trapped under one of the beams from the load due to the machine collapsing due to a fault occurring while the load was being grounded,” Ms Cleere continued.
Because of the fault, her client could not raise the gantry again, she said.
“In an act of leadership and great bravery, he got a crowbar and lifted the beam with all his strength to rescue the foot of the contractor machine operator,” Ms Cleere submitted.
She added that when the Portlaoise depot supervisor got to the scene he “reprimanded Mr Lynch as his first course of action without tending to the injured party on the ground”.
Mr Lynch’s position was that he was placed in an “impossible position” that day and that he only did what he did “to minimise and control an already dangerous situation” and to avert further property damage and injury.
A company investigation and disciplinary process concluded that Mr Lynch’s actions in taking control of the crane against his line manager’s prior instructions amounted to a “reckless violation”. However, Siptu argued the circumstances surrounding Mr Lynch’s actions “were not properly investigated”, leading to a “fundamentally unfair” process.
A view was expressed by Mr Lynch during the investigation that the equipment was “faulty”, the tribunal heard. However, Ms Devoy said: “This wasn’t proven, and doesn’t excuse the use of the equipment in the first place.” Ms Cleere countered that there was “no evidence of this being investigated”.
The outcome of the disciplinary process was a final written warning for Mr Lynch. However, a senior manager decided to invoke a provision of the Irish Rail disciplinary processes allowing for the termination of an employee on a “temporary contract” on foot of a written sanction, the tribunal was told.
Mr Lynch told adjudication officer Brian Dolan that he would have accepted the final written warning and “worked to restore his standing” with Irish Rail if he had not been dismissed.
In his decision on the case, Mr Dolan wrote that the circumstances surrounding Mr Lynch’s actions “should have been investigated”, as they were “material” to the allegations against him.
At minimum, the company would be expected to interview other workers and put their statements to Mr Lynch, he wrote. Instead, it seemed to him that Irish Rail “simply formed the view that [Mr Lynch] operated the machine in contravention of an express direction not to do so”, he wrote.
He said it had been an “extraordinary decision” to increase the sanction from final written warning to dismissal, leaving Mr Lynch without “any right of response” to the finding against him and no opportunity to fight for his job.
He called the dismissal “both substantially and procedurally unfair”.
However, on the question of reinstatement, Mr Dolan accepted the national rail operator’s concerns about Mr Lynch’s safety record were “not entirely unfounded”, while Mr Lynch had also started a course in an “entirely unrelated field”.
He concluded that the parties had “moved on” and that it would be “impractical” to force them back into an employment relationship. He decided compensation was the right form of redress and awarded Mr Lynch €12,000.
