A paintball marshal has failed in a claim that he was unfairly dismissed after complaining about being transferred to “bin cleaner” duties at a leisure park but has won €2,000, with a tribunal ruling his holiday pay arrangements unlawful.
Roughly 15 part-time staff at Adventure Park at Kartworld in Watergrasshill, Co Cork, were being paid on the same basis, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) heard.
The worker, Adam Pais, secured the compensation for a breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act 2005 by park operator Kartworld Adventure Centre Ltd.
Pais worked for about 18 months at the adventure park before he alleged he was unfairly dismissed on October 15th, 2024 – the day after he filed statutory complaints concerning his holiday pay and terms of employment, the tribunal heard.
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The worker said in evidence that he had been “promised €11.50 per hour but was only paid €11” and had “no paid annual leave [and] no sick leave”.
When he approached his employer seeking pay for his annual leave, he was told it was “contained within the hourly rate”, he said.
Pais added that his job “changed from paintball marshal to bin cleaner”.
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His position in a statutory complaint under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 was that this was a “unilateral change in the terms of his employment”.
David Walsh, the company secretary, told the WRC at a hearing in February that before the change in Pais’s duties in early 2024, it had become “frequent” that the complainant failed to turn up for work.
Marshalling games was time-sensitive and customer-facing, and Pais was put on “maintenance” to avoid logistical problems for the business, he said.
Walsh added that Pais had his holiday pay “rolled into the hourly rate”, in common with about 14 or 15 other part-time staff.
Adjudicator Lefre de Burgh wrote in her decision: “The employer’s approach to annual leave, done at least putatively for administrative ease, does not fulfil its obligations under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1977 with respect to annual leave.”
She wrote that the legal obligation under the Working Time Directive “cannot be discharged by rolling an element of holiday into a worker’s basic pay rate”.
“Any contractual arrangement purporting to authorise a composite rate is void,” she added.
She wrote that €2,000 was “just and equitable” for the breach in Pais’s case.
Walsh told the hearing that Pais was “not dismissed, fired, let go or any other description”.
Pais said the day after he made complaints to the WRC in relation to holiday pay and terms of employment, he was called in to speak with his boss at the clubhouse.
He said he had asked a colleague to go to the meeting him, but they had declined to attend. Pais said this to another worker who was present in the clubhouse, he said.
Her reply was: “Just go so,” Pais said.
He then told his boss he had just been “fired” by this worker, and his boss told him: “Go on, so”, he added.
De Burgh noted that Pais “interpreted that as a dismissal on foot of the fact he had raised WRC complaints”.
He went home, made a third complaint alleging unfair dismissal the following day and never returned to the job, she noted.
“In fact, the respondent had not received those initial complaints at that point,” de Burgh wrote.
“I find he was not dismissed, unfairly or otherwise,” she concluded.
She also rejected Pais’s claim in relation to the change in job duties, noting that his job contract had a flexibility clause and the circumstances of the transfer as set out by the respondent.
