A woman who worked a 60 hour week has been awarded €7,500 by the Labour Court.
The complainant, Ms O’Hara, was employed Kepak Convenience Foods Unlimited Company and was contractually required to work 40 hours a week. Ms O’Hara’s job involved significant travel and recording responsibilities, resulting in her weekly reports being submitted late and causing her to fall short on her targets. As a result, Ms O’Hara was working 60 hours a week to meet the demands expected of her. Ms O’Hara left her employment in April 2017 and made a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission on the grounds that her working hours breached the 48 hour limit as set out in the Working Time Act 1997.
Ms O’Hara was able to provide emails to show her working hours beyond that contracted, including those sent to and by her employer. Kepak did not offer any evidence to the contrary. The Adjudication Officer considered the case of IBM Ireland v Svobdoa DWT in which the Labour Court emphasised the employer’s duty to keep working hours within that laid down in legislation. The case also stated that it was no defence for the employer to say that they did not know the employee was working beyond the 28 hour limit.
The Adjudication Officer found that there was no evidence that Kepak was monitoring the working hours of the complaint to ensure that her hours were not excessive. It was further held that Kepak ought to have known that Ms O’Hara was working in excess of the hours allowed by the legislation in order to complete all tasks assigned to her.
Kepak appealed the decision to the Labour Court providing an analysis of the complainant’s workload and stating that, based on the evidence, the complainant’s claims are not credible. The Labour Court found that the evidence provided by Kepak did not override any evidence given by the complainant in relation to her work hours. While the evidence presented by Kepak may have shown that Ms Hara was not required to work additional hours, it did not address whether she in fact worked them in any given week. The Court was of the view that Kepak was aware of Ms O’Hara’s hours and yet failed to monitor and curtail them.
Please click here for the Adjudication Officer decision.
Please click here for the Labour Court decision.