A chef who said he spent nearly 14 years working in a restaurant kitchen without any paid holidays has won over €55,000 for workplace rights breaches.
Masood Ur Rehman, a tandoori chef working for Dublin-based restaurant operator Roti Panni Ltd, secured the award in a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) decision published on Wednesday.
The decision, dated 26th March this year, comes some four years after Mr Ur Rehman’s workplace closed in January 2021.
Shonagh Byrne of Siptu appeared for Mr Ur Rehman before the WRC at hearings in 2022 and 2023.
She told the tribunal that although the name of the restaurant Mr Ur Rehman had worked at had changed “repeatedly”, her client was employed by “the same person ... at the same location for the entire course of his employment”.
Ms Byrne argued that there had been no break in service and that every time there had been a transfer of undertakings her client’s service was carried over.
Giving evidence with the aid of an Urdu interpreter, Mr Ur Rehman said he had worked for the same family via “a number of different companies” preceding the restaurant’s closure.
Adjudicator Conor Stokes wrote that there was “a large amount of documentation connecting each iteration of employment to the next” and that he found Mr Ur Rehman’s evidence on the continuity of his employment “credible”.
“He worked in the same location, using the same equipment, working with the same colleagues, for the same management and under the same terms and conditions of employment,” Mr Stokes noted in summary.
Noting that nobody had come before the WRC on behalf of the employer, Mr Stokes ruled that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Mr Ur Rehman had continuous employment through a series of transfers of undertakings going back over 13 years.
Mr Stokes wrote that Mr Ur Rehman provided “credible” evidence that he was not paid holiday or annual leave, was “never” paid for public holidays and did not receive notice when he was made redundant.
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Ruling the employer in breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act 2005, Mr Stokes wrote: “I require the employer to pay the complainant compensation of €41,600, equivalent to two years’ salary, which I consider to be just and equitable in all the circumstances of this complaint.”
A further award of €2,400 was made to Mr Ur Rehman for the failure to pay him for a notice period in breach of the Minimum notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973.
Mr Stokes also decided that Mr Ur Rehman was entitled to statutory redundancy on the basis of service from 2nd February, 2007 to 31st December, 2020 and gross weekly pay on termination of €400.
The ruling, under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, translates to a lump sum worth around €11,500, but is subject to confirmation of Mr Ur Rehman’s social insurance contributions for the period.
Mr Stokes noted that his decision on the case was “partially delayed due to an immediate family bereavement” and due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
