A builder who has claimed his former employer unlawfully docked his wages to pay for a laptop damaged by spilled tea has accused a payroll administrator of falsely stating that he agreed to the deduction.
Disputed accounts of what was said during a 90-second phone call last summer emerged as the two former colleagues at Co Wexford-based BHA Construction Ltd took turns cross-examining each other at the Workplace Relations Commission this afternoon.
The tribunal was hearing complaints under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 by site manager Barry Cull, who has accused BHA of docking €620 from his final pay packet for the laptop after he quit.
He also claims the company failed to pay him €750 in gross wages for his last three days on the job, when the company maintains he failed to clock in.
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Mr Cull, who has an address in Thurles, Co Tipperary, told the tribunal he earned €2,500 a fortnight while working a 41.5-hour week as a site manager for the company between February and July 2023, when he resigned – with a deduction made to his final pay packet on July 14th.
“Tea got spilled on the laptop, it got damaged then. I was out of the office,” Mr Cull said, adding that the firm’s payroll administrator told him it would cost €620 to replace.
“She never said I’d have to pay. There was never any email. The first I seen of the €620 was when my payslip came in,” he said.
The payroll administrator, Marie Murphy, who appeared on behalf of the company, cross-examined Mr Cull and put it to him: “I told you it was new, €620, and it would be deducted from your wages.”
“No you didn’t, that’s false,” he replied.
“I did,” Ms Murphy said.
“You didn’t,” Mr Cull said.
“The day he rang me, I told him how much the laptop was… he said that was fine, deduct that from his wages,” Ms Murphy continued.
“I can definitively say that I did not say that,” Mr Cull said.
After a further exchange, adjudicator Christina Ryan said: “Everyone needs to calm down. It’s clear there’s a dispute. If the parties agreed on everything we wouldn’t be here.”
In direct evidence, Ms Murphy stated that Mr Cull told her “he had spilled tea on the laptop” and agreed to the pay deduction.
“I said it was company property, a brand-new laptop, and that it’d have to be replaced,” she said.
Asked by the adjudicator whether she ever put the details of the alleged agreement in writing to Mr Cull prior to the pay deduction, she said she had not.
On Mr Cull’s claim for non-payment of three days’ wages, Ms Murphy said the firm’s timekeeping system only recorded him clocking in on two days in his last week on the job.
The complainant said he had worked his normal hours and used the company’s clock-in system as normal on July 5th, 6th and 7th last, but that it seemed to him it “didn’t register” at head office.
Mr Cull said he told Ms Murphy that two named colleagues, who were not present at the hearing, would “vouch” for him.
“She said it’s worked off the clock-in system, she won’t be contacting [them],” Mr Cull added.
Ms Murphy’s position was that the system had recorded all other staff present on the site that week and that the company policies required staff to contact head office if they did not succeed in clocking in.
Mr Cull’s said there had been no indication of any systems failure on the clock-in device on site.
The adjudicator closed the hearing and is to issue her decision in writing to the parties.
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