Work

Murder victim’s colleague wins €20k redundancy claim over safety fears

Bidvest Noonan cleaner let go without redundancy after 20 years when she raised concerns in wake of colleague’s murder

Cleaning firm Bidvest Noonan must pay a former staff member €20,000 over failure to address real safety fears after colleague's murder. Photograph: iStock

Stephen Bourke
Wed Mar 13 2024 - 09:23

A former colleague of murdered office cleaner Urantsetseg Tserendorj has won a €20,000 claim for statutory redundancy after her bosses dismissed her concerns about being out on the streets of Dublin’s Docklands late at night after finishing work.

Bidvest Noonan (ROI) Ltd, one of the State’s largest Industrial cleaning groups, had taken an “appalling attitude” in response to legitimate safety concerns voiced by the worker about how having to fetch her car from a public street every night after finishing work at 2am, a Workplace Relations Commission adjudicator said.

The worker, Rodica Buga, was let go in 2022 without any redundancy pay after her employer took the view she had turned down a reasonable offer of redeployment to the offices of financial services firm State Street on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin 2 in 2022. Ms Buga had worked with Bidvest Noonan for nearly 20 years.

Her colleague, Ms Tserendorj, had been coming home from the same office when she was fatally stabbed across the river at Custom House Quay, Dublin 1, in January 2021 and died later in hospital. A teenage boy, who cannot be named, is now serving a life sentence for her murder.

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Ms Buga, who represented herself before the employment tribunal in January, said the transfer arrangement was proposed by Bidvest Noonan as an alternative to redundancy as the client she had been working for up to that point, law firm A&L Goodbody, was closing its offices for renovations and ended the Bidvest Noonan contract.

A&L Goodbody let her use a secure underground car park but the same arrangement was not available at the State Street office. It offered instead to pay the cost of on-street parking, the tribunal heard.

“As a woman, she didn’t feel that going to her car at 2am every night, parked on the street in the docklands, would be safe,” adjudicator David James Murphy said of Ms Buga’s evidence.

“She had been attacked 10 years ago in the same area. When she brought this up in the consultation process, her concerns were ignored,” he noted further.

Ms Buga also cited health concerns about what she regarded as a change in duties to disinfect hot-desks at the State Street premises.

Emily Maverley of employers’ group Ibec, appearing for the company, submitted that the new work site was only 15 minutes’ walk from Ms Buga’s prior place of work but that the worker “refused to try” it even for a test week.

Liliana Nastas, an account manager with Bidvest Noonan, told the WRC the company “wanted to retain staff” and that a taxi service was available for Bidvest Noonan employees at State Street. But she said she did not know whether this was ever offered to Ms Buga.

Ms Buga’s position had been that it was not offered to her.

A memo referring to a July 2022 consultation meeting with Ms Buga, which was opened to the tribunal, recorded a senior human resources adviser for Bidvest Noonan referring to the complainant raising her concerns.

“I do recall Rodica mentioned in the previous meeting the health and safety point where one of our cleaners was attacked coming home from work,” the memo read.

“In response to this, the incident did not take place in the State Street area; it took place further away. Also, one incident cannot define health and safety as a whole; anyone can be attacked at any point in the day,” it read.

In his decision, the adjudicator wrote that the meeting referred to in the memo was “roughly a year and a half after an employee of the respondent was murdered in the IFSC area while on her way home from work”.

“In the circumstances, it is an appalling attitude to take in response to an entirely legitimate concern raised by a long-standing worker,” he added. “The lack of secure parking constituted a serious change in her working conditions, particularly considering the hour of night she would have to walk to her car at.”

He noted the employer had produced “no evidence” to back up its claim that it offered the Ms Buga a taxi home. “Indeed, their own transcripts of meetings would appear to contradict this position, as HR appears to challenge the complainant’s concern in this regard,” he wrote.

The adjudicator ruled Ms Buga had been reasonable to turn down the transfer and was therefore entitled to a redundancy package for her service between January 2003 and August 2022.

Mr Murphy made an order for the payment calculated on the basis of 19 years and seven months’ service with termination pay of €500 a week – a sum of roughly €20,000, subject to confirmation of PRSI contributions by the Department of Social Protection.

He rejected a second claim by Ms Buga for notice pay, ruing that an appeal hearing which took place after she received notice did not require her notice period to start again.

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