In a legal first, a warehouse worker who was sacked after being forced to repeatedly take sick leave because of a reaction to the cosmetic products she was handling has won €13,000 for disability discrimination.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has directed staffing agency Oak Central Recruitment Ltd to pay the compensation on foot of complaints under the Employment Equality Act 1998 by the worker, Santa Musinska.
It’s the first case in Ireland where there was a ruling on whether the effects of eczema can constitute a disability under workplace equality law. Ms Musinska told the tribunal that she was a Latvian national who had been employed as a stock picker between October 16th, 2023, and January 19th, 2024, at a Masterlink warehouse in Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
She told the tribunal her job was to gather up “creams, mascaras, perfumes, everything from cosmetics” to make up boxes for delivery to shops and pharmacies, explaining to the tribunal that she was directed around the warehouse using a headset by a “robot” voice calling box numbers.
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The complainant said that after a couple of days doing this work, her hands started to get “very itchy”. When she went to her doctor, she showed him “spots” and said they were “really sore”.
Ms Musinska said her hands did improve, and she returned after a period of absence in October that year. However, after resuming work, she said that was when her hands “started to get almost without skin”. She said “blisters” had also formed.
“It was really, really bad. I couldn’t work at home, I couldn’t peel my potatoes ... I couldn’t do anything, my sister had to do everything,” she said.
Her barrister, Eleanor Power BL, asked: “Why did you go back if your hands were not fully healed?”
“I needed money. I have three kids, myself. I’m living with my sister, she’s two kids, struggling, and I’ve a mom, she’s on my care, my mom. I know I have hands bad, but I still went back, I was trying,” Ms Musinska said.
She explained that the company provided rubber-coated cloth gloves when she asked for them and that she took to wearing latex gloves underneath these as she continued at work.
However, she said even with the gloves her hands were still “really itchy” and that she was changing the gloves frequently. She said she “always worked with cosmetics” at the warehouse.
When Ms Power put it to her that it was “obvious that the issues in your hands were directly related to the picking you were doing”, Ms Musinska agreed.
The complainant said that after she was “fired” in January 2024, it took a “couple of months” for her hands to recover.
“You still see scars and everything, but it’s okay, [I have] great hands now,” she said.
The tribunal noted that Ms Musinska had been diagnosed with “allergic eczema”.
Adjudication officer Úna Glazier-Farmer ruled that the staffing agency was the correct respondent in the matter, and dismissed the claims against the various Masterlink companies.
A contract of employment with Oak Central Recruitment Services Ltd signed by Ms Musinska had been produced at the hearing. Ms Glazier-Farmer noted there was no precedent in Ireland for a discrimination case referencing eczema as a disability.
Having considered Ms Musinska’s evidence on the severity of her condition, her multiple visits to a GP, and referral to a specialist, the adjudicator concluded that the worker’s eczema had resulted in a malfunction of her hands, and therefore a temporary disability for the purposes of the Employment Equality Act.
Witnesses called in defence of the claim “all agreed they were aware [Ms Musinska] had a skin condition”, Ms Glazier-Farmer noted. Ms Musinska seemed to be “a resilient individual who did not wish to cause disruption in the workplace”, but the gloves she was given were just the standard PPE given out on site and did not alleviate her condition, Ms Glazier-Farmer added.
Despite repeated absences and return-to-work interviews, the staffing agency failed to carry out a risk assessment or send the complainant to see an occupational health practitioner, Ms Glazier-Farmer wrote.
That gave rise to the conclusion that the employer had failed to make reasonable accommodation for Ms Musinska’s disability.
The adjudicator further noted that the staffing agency had given “three different reasons” at hearing for letting Ms Musinska go in January 2024 – redundancy due to a downturn in work, failure to pass probation, and the end of a seasonal contract – none of which she accepted.
This was because the termination letter given to Ms Musinska incorrectly suggested a fixed-term contract was in place when her employment contract was a permanent one.
The letter also implied the termination was “unrelated to performance or conduct”, despite the company later referencing a probation clause in her contract, the adjudicator noted.
“Given the proximity between the complainant’s sick leave and her dismissal, I find there is an inference of discrimination in the absence of any other rational explanation, and the complainant was dismissed because of her disability.
She awarded Ms Musinska €5,000 for disability discrimination in the failure to provide reasonable accommodation, and a further €8,000 for discriminatory dismissal in breach of the Employment Equality Act 1998.
