A nail technician let go just a month after starting work has won €1,000 in compensation for unfair dismissal after her employer fell foul of an anti-victimisation clause in the National Minimum Wage Act.
Sole trader Colm Tyrell, operator of a beauty salon Love Your Nails, was directed to pay €1,000 to the worker, Odonchimeg Genenbat, for what a Workplace Relations Commission adjudicator called a “very arbitrary dismissal without any proper procedures” last Christmas.
Ms Genenbat, a nail technician earning €260 for a 20-hour week, told a workplace rights hearing in May this year that she was hired on 26 November 2024, and was informed by text message on 27 December that her job had been “terminated”.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, she explained that she was furnished with neither any standard employment documentation nor any payslips when she started work. She said “all was well” until she asked for payslips on 14 December to find out her rate of pay.
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Having taken holidays on Christmas Eve, she was told she was out of a job three days later without any of the normal procedures, interviews or appeals required in a dismissal taking place, she told the tribunal.
Ms Genenbet, who worked at the salon just over a month, argued she fell under an exception to the usual minimum requirement of 12 months’ continuous service to be shielded by the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.
She cited Section 36 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, stating that her request for her payslips on 14 December put her in the category of a worker who had sought information about her wages and been refused.
Adjudicator Michael McEntee recorded that her employer, Mr Tyrell, had failed to show up to the hearing on 23 May this year.
He noted an email from the employer stating that the failure to give Ms Genenbat her payslips was an “administrative error”.
The employer wrote that he came to the “difficult decision not to continue her employment” because of alleged “work performance” issues.
These claimed issues were the “inability to complete customer treatments in the time allocated” and “customer satisfaction issues”, Mr Tyrell wrote.
In his decision, Mr McEntee noted that the fact of dismissal was not in dispute and ruled that Ms Genembat was entitled to pursue her complaint despite her short service.
“Either by accident or design, the complainant was able to utilise a mechanism to have her case heard under the Unfair Dismissals Act. Accordingly, the absence of normal procedures makes the dismissal unfair, and redress has to be awarded,” he added.
He awarded €1,000 in compensation, noting Ms Genenbat’s short period in employment and “modest” wages.
Mr McEntee wrote that the employer had taken a “somewhat cavalier approach” by failing to attend the hearing and said this was a factor in his decision.
Mr Tyrell is the first employer in over two and a half years to lose an Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 claim relying on the extension of the law to a worker who has sought a statement of pay under Section 36 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000.
