A telephonist who was “marched out” of a call centre after being sacked for using “abusive and foul language” over an open phone line in the mistaken belief she had put the customer on hold has lost a claim for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination.
Bosses at Infosys BPM Ltd concluded the worker, Colleen Lonergan, jeopardised a “valuable” client contract and committed gross misconduct when she was heard to remark “what a f***ing b***h” by the customer last year, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) heard.
In a decision just published, the employment tribunal has rejected a series of statutory complaints against the firm by Ms Lonergan, including claims under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 and the Employment Equality Act 1998.
Ms Lonergan told the WRC the phrase was intended to “describe the situation rather than the customer”, the tribunal noted.
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“The problem is that the customer heard it and took it to be a direct reference to her,” a WRC adjudicator wrote.
It happened during a “particularly difficult” call on in June last year, when Ms Lonergan said she had been “on the phone for an hour and 45 minutes without help”, the tribunal noted.
Ms Lonergan’s evidence was that she “thought the call was on hold”.
Adjudication officer Penelope McGrath wrote in her decision that, by the time the case came before her, the tape of the call that had been reviewed in a company investigation had been wiped.
“There does not seem to be any doubt that the complainant used the word ‘b***h’ while on the call,” the adjudicator wrote. She noted the sworn evidence of the company investigator, a junior operations manager, that the phrase used was: “What a f***ing b***h.”
“I understand that the tape was played in the course of the investigation and disciplinary process and that there was, at that time, no dispute that the language which was used was unacceptable,” Ms McGrath wrote.
The adjudicator wrote that it was to Ms Lonergan’s credit that she “owned her mistake immediately” and raised it with the team leader.
Ms Lonergan was allowed to keep working for a number of days while a disciplinary process took its course in early July 2024, but was “marched out of the building” upon her dismissal in what the adjudicator considered to be “regrettable” circumstances.
Ms Lonergan, had also advanced a complaint of workplace discrimination against her former employer, referenced absences from work owing to health trouble on one occasion, and “a breakdown crying at work over home issues and bad calls from customers” on another.
“I was continually harassed about taking too long coming back from toilet and breaks even though I was struggling with my various health issues,” Ms Lonergan wrote in a letter to the WRC.
“It’s my belief that when I made the mistake on the call ... the company took full opportunity to terminate my employment because of my ongoing health issues,” she added.
The company’s position was that there was “no substance whatsoever to these allegations”, the WRC noted.
Addressing the disability discrimination element of the claim, the adjudicator wrote that she did not form the impression that Ms Lonergan’s team leader had to “chivvy” her along from bathroom and smoke breaks any “more or less” than other staff.
“I note there were never any disciplinary issues around timekeeping and must assume that the team leader was simply doing her job,” Ms McGrath wrote.
“The respondent’s position is that the claimant’s behaviour in calling a customer a “f***ing b***h” on a recorded call was completely unacceptable in the workplace, constitutes gross misconduct and warranted dismissal,” its representative Muireann McEnery submitted.
Referencing this in her decision on the unfair dismissal claim, Ms McGrath wrote: “I approve the respondent position as set out in the submission received.”
She dismissed both the unfair dismissal and the disability discrimination complaints, along with further claims by Ms Lonergan under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994, the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act 1973.
