South Dublin Chinese takeaway delivery driver sacked after seeking raise on €5 an hour

A delivery driver for a south Dublin Chinese takeaway who was “disgracefully” sacked without notice after looking for a raise on his €5-an-hour cash-in-hand wages has been awarded €1,500 for unfair dismissal.

The worker, William Ye, secured the order against the Emerald Court Chinese Restaurant in Ranelagh, Dublin 6, in a decision published on Wednesday.

He said he used his own car to deliver food and got no petrol money—but kept working for what he knew was less than the minimum wage because he “sometimes got tips”.

Mr Ye told the tribunal he had been asking the restaurant’s owner, Huiru Zhu, “for more than a year” for a pay rise.

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On Tuesday March 20th this year, he sent a text to Ms Zhu asking her whether she had considered his request and pressing her to “make a final decision”.

He said that shortly after he reported to work at 5pm the following Friday March 24th, Ms Zhu texted him and stated: “I’ve found someone [to] replace your work. You don’t work here any more.”

Mr Ye told adjudicator Catherine Byrne he had “no contract or employee handbook and no payslips” from the job.

He said, however, that he had worked starting in January 2020 and continuing “throughout” the Covid-19 pandemic, up to March 2023, and showed her texts on his phone from his employer.

Ms Byrne accepted translations from the original Chinese from Mr Ye in a post-hearing submission.

These included a request for masks during the early stages of the pandemic; requests to pick up orders and cover for another worker, and other conversation, Ms Byrne noted.

The final communication from Ms Zhu recorded in the submission was the dismissal text, Ms Byrne noted.

The adjudicator was satisfied on the basis of the complainant’s evidence on communications with the owner that he had more than the one year’s service required to make a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977.

In her decision, she wrote that although Mr Ye had suggested that he might have been dismissed because he is “not a young man”, the information in the texts he provided suggested the dismissal “may have been related to his persistence in asking for a pay increase”.

“Whatever the cause, I find that, by dismissing him with no explanation, no notice and in the absence of procedures, the conduct of his employer was entirely unfair. Measured against the standard of ‘another reasonable employer in the same circumstances’, I find that Mr Ye was treated disgracefully,” Ms Byrne concluded.

However, she said she was limited to awarding four weeks’ pay in compensation, as Mr Ye had stated he had not looked for work since his dismissal.

As €5 an hour was so low as to be “unlawful”, she awarded compensation of four weeks’ pay at the National Minimum Wage of €11.30 an hour – calculating this at €1,500.