A group of staff at Dublin restaurant Shanahan’s on the Green were left short nearly €35,000 when it shut abruptly last year, a tribunal has found.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has heard multiple statutory complaints from former employees of its operator, JMS International Holdings, since the closure of the prominent restaurant and has made awards to six workers to date.
There had been a promise to staff that Shanahan’s would get back in business and pay what it owed to the workers, a waiter told the tribunal last month. “These plans never came to fruition,” he said.
In each case, the workers – who include chefs, front-of-house staff and the company’s long-standing book-keeper – have told the employment tribunal the company failed to pay them any wages for their last week at work.
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Six workers, each with more than a decade’s service, gave evidence to WRC adjudication officers that they received no notice of termination in circumstances where they were entitled to six to eight weeks each.
Waiting staff said that as well as being denied their last week’s wages and other statutory entitlements, they were also left without their tips when the restaurant closed.
The tribunal heard that when tips and service charges were accounted for, some senior waiters at Shanahans were making €1,000 a week or more while working full-time hours.
“It was left to the manager to inform us what was happening, he didn’t tell us anything. The company shut down; I was left a week without pay – there was also unpaid tips and service charges,” waiter David Byrne told the WRC last month.
Mr Byrne, who had only started four weeks before the closure, said Shanahan’s “shut down quite quickly”.
“We were told the Sunday night, and from there, it was just shut down. We were emailed, we were told everything would be sorted out, that he had plans to open up again and get everyone paid. These plans never came to fruition.”
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Mr Byrne was due no statutory redundancy or notice pay due to his short service, but said he had not been paid for three shifts in his last week in the employment.
Adjudication officer Conor Stokes found the restaurant’s management breached the Payment of Wages Act 1991 by failing to pay Mr Byrne the €360 he was owed for working three dinner shifts.
Mr Stokes also found Mr Byrne’s split of the service charges for that week, €74.80, along with €47.63 in tips, was not paid out in a further breach of the Payment of Wages Act on the part of the restaurant. The total awarded to Mr Byrne was €684.93.
The restaurant was coming up on its 25th anniversary when staff were informed that it had ceased trading. Five workers have secured orders for statutory notice on the basis of working there over a decade.
Waiter Luke Carragher was awarded €3,300 for unpaid wages and holiday pay. Paul Harte, another waiter, an employee of Shanahan’s since 2006, won €9,855, comprising a week’s gross pay and eight weeks’ notice.
Assistant manager Angelo Lamberti, who was earning €1,200 a week, including tips and gratuities, won €5,280 for unpaid notice pay, wages and holiday entitlements. Chef Piotr Fraszczyk won €5,950 and book-keeper Kathleen Friel won €9,855 on the same basis.
The total awards made against JMS International Holdings by the WRC to date now stand at €34,992.93.
The restaurant’s management has not attended any of the cases decided by the WRC to date.
One of the longest-serving staff was chef Gheorge Danescu, whose case was also heard last month. WRC adjudicator Penelope McGrath told him: “I have met a number of your colleagues at this stage. You were all let go without any explanation in October of last year. It was a difficult situation, undoubtedly.”
“Nineteen years,” Mr Danescu said, adding: “They’ve been like a family.”
“I can see from the tone of the emails he [the owner] sent that he had a good rapport with his staff, but he did leave you in the lurch,” Ms McGrath said.
She noted that there was an email from the owner “stating that Revenue had frozen the bank accounts and he was going to go back to the States and attempt to raise funds”.
“You were given no notice, because that was effectively your last day of work,” she added.
The WRC’s decision on Mr Danescu’s complaints has yet to be published. The chef’s wife asked Ms McGrath at the hearing: “Who’s going to pay the money?”
Ms McGrath said: “Some money can be claimed through the social insurance fund. You need to talk to your colleagues; I can’t give you legal advice [but] it’s not without hope.”
“It won’t be from the respondent. The status of the respondent would be known to the [Department of Social Protection],” she added.
