Airport chiefs have been urged to give a security worker his old job as a supervisor back after he was demoted for kissing a subordinate while they were at work together on a screening line two summers ago.
The decision to demote the worker from airport search supervisor to a junior position on the airport search unit was “excessive”, a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator decided in a non-binding recommendation under the Industrial Relations Act 1969.
The tribunal heard the supervisor had more than five years’ service on the airport search unit, screening passengers and baggage, with two years as supervisor, when he was placed under investigation in September 2023 and suspended.
The employer said it considered the complainant to have committed gross misconduct by “kissing a colleague during active operational duties” on the two days before his suspension.
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The other worker, a more junior airport search unit officer, had been operating an x-ray machine on one occasion, and was working in a “premium services area” under the supervisor on the other occasion.
The outcome of the disciplinary process was that the complainant was demoted from his €46,000 a year supervisor post and placed on a final written warning.
The decision reflected the “safety-critical nature of the breaches, the worker’s leadership responsibilities and the need to preserve the integrity of security operations”, the employer submitted.
The disciplinary officer’s view was that the kissing “had the potential to compromise both safety and the employer’s reputation”.
The demotion and warning were upheld on appeal, an internal appeals officer taking the view that the sanction was “consistent with those issued in comparable cases”, the tribunal heard.
Joseph Ateb of the Siptu Workers’ Rights Centre, who appeared for the worker, said his client had appealed the decision as being “excessively harsh” and contended that his previous good record in employment was not given due consideration.
The final written warning had expired by the time the WRC heard the case, leaving only the demotion as an issue, the tribunal noted.
Adjudicator Breiffni O’Neill wrote that the employer’s decision not to consider transferring the supervisor to another department “calls into question the true extent of the safety concerns”.
“This inconsistency undermines the credibility of the employer’s rationale and suggests a lack of proportionality,” he wrote.
“In light of the worker’s unblemished prior record, his acceptance of responsibility and the employer’s failure to consider a less punitive and reasonable alternative, I find that the additional sanction of demotion was excessive,” Mr O’Neill wrote.
His recommendation on the dispute was that the demotion be rescinded and that the worker be reinstated as a supervisor “with full restoration of duties and remuneration” within a week.
The recommendation was published without the names of either the worker or his employer, in line with the WRC’s usual practice under the Industrial Relations Act’s voluntary arbitration process.
