Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> adjudicator said BGSS had shown a \u201cblatant disregard\u201d for workers\u2019 rights and placed its law-abiding competitors at a disadvantage by ignoring the employment regulation order (ERO) for the security industry. <\/p>\nMr Rop, a Kenyan citizen pursuing graduate studies in Ireland, is the 18th worker in the past year and a half to secure a WRC decision against BGSS. The company now owes ex-staff over \u20ac193,000 between unpaid wages and compensation for employment rights breaches. <\/p>\n
The company, whose clients once included Centra, Spar and Supervalu stores in Dublin, had its licence to operate static security guards revoked by the Private Security Authority (PSA) in June. <\/p>\n
The worker told the WRC at a hearing last month that he was put to work by BGSS on May 13th last year, working 20-30 hours a week between daytime and evening shifts as a door guard at shops in Dublin city. <\/p>\n
Mr Rop said that the company started assigning him extra hours around June last year, but that payment for them was \u201cdrawn out\u201d and he eventually left the job short a gross amount of \u20ac1,088.49. <\/p>\n
Mr Rop said his \u201conly wish was to be paid what was properly owed from [his] labour\u201d and said that although he has \u201cno ill feeling\u201d towards his ex-employer, he felt \u201cvery much let down and used\u201d by BGSS. <\/p>\n
His representative, David Cotter of the Independent Workers\u2019 Union, said: \u201cIn failing to pay its employees, the respondent [BGSS] was the beneficiary of a significant, obvious and unfair advantage over competitors who paid employees in accordance with the Employment Regulation Order.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his client and other workers found themselves \u201cproviding free labour\u201d to BGSS while it \u201creaped the financial benefit\u201d, pointing to the \u201cmany cases that had already been heard before the WRC\u201d in relation to BGSS. <\/p>\n
He said employers in the security trade were in regular competition for contract work and that if the ERO was undermined, there was a high risk of a \u201crace to the bottom\u201d. <\/p>\n
In her decision, adjudication officer Patricia Owens wrote: \u201cI share the view expressed by Mr Cotter, that the practice of non-payment of wages and the flagrant disregard for the ERO places law-abiding companies at significant disadvantage when competing for security contracts, undermines the Joint Labour Committee process and creates a risk of industrial relations instability.\u201d<\/p>\n
She upheld Mr Rop\u2019s complaints under the Payment of Wages Act 1991, the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 and the Industrial Relations Act 1949. <\/p>\n
She awarded him \u20ac1,088 for the outstanding wages, \u20ac1,200 for non-provision of a statement of employment terms, and \u20ac45,240 in compensation \u2013 a sum equivalent to two years\u2019 wages, the legal maximum \u2013 for the breach of the Employment Regulation Order. <\/p>\n
She said she had taken into account the \u201cegregious behaviour of this employer and its practice of blatant disregard for the rights of its employees\u201d in setting the award, as well as the financial impact on Mr Rop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A security guard who said he was left feeling \u201clet down and used\u201d after working unpaid shifts for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-68792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}