A CHILDCARE worker who was sacked for refusing to attend a meeting with management unless she was allowed to have a union representative accompany her has been awarded €10,000 by the Employment Appeals Tribunal.
The tribunal ruled that Cocoon Headstart Centres Ltd in Ballycullen, Dublin, dismissed Siobhán O’Reilly unfairly after she refused to comply with what it found to be an unreasonable request.
Ms O’Reilly, Porterstown, Clonsilla, Dublin, had worked in the west Dublin branch of Cocoon since September 2008.
In the summer of 2009, the company was experiencing cash flow difficulties; employees’ salaries were paid late in two consecutive months, while a 6 per cent pay cut was also imposed.
Concerned by the developments, a number of employees from the west Dublin branch joined a trade union. The tribunal described Ms O’Reilly as appearing to be in the “vanguard” of the move to unionise.
In an attempt to defuse the growing tension between workers and management, the company’s executive in charge of operations travelled to the branch in September 2009 with the intention of holding one-on-one interviews with all the employees to let them air their grievances.
Ms O’Reilly, who was selected as the first employee to take part in one of these meetings, informed management that her union had advised her against attending alone. When she requested to have somebody accompany her, she was told by the company that it did not recognise unions and that since it was not a disciplinary meeting, she was not allowed to bring somebody in with her.
Management took the view that Ms O’Reilly was refusing a reasonable request, an act it considered to be insubordination, and therefore decided to dismiss her.
The tribunal found that in this case a “tense atmosphere was prevailing” and that the refusal to allow someone to accompany Ms O’Reilly into her meeting was an unreasonable instruction.
The tribunal also ruled that the decision to dismiss was not reasonable and accordingly it found in favour of Ms O’Reilly and awarded her €10,000.