A suspended member of the national executive of the retail workers’ union Mandate will find out on Friday if her application for an injunction requiring the union to allow her to stand for re-election is successful.
Lorna Langan, a member of the Mandate national executive council (NEC) for the last two years, claims the union’s decision to suspend her membership, meaning she could not run for re-election, arose out of her attempts to highlight wrongdoing and malpractice, over which a formal complaint has now been made to gardaí.
She claims the NEC had been misled at an emergency meeting in June 2021 into approving an enhanced redundancy payment for a staff member in excess of €100,000.
She claims that with under a week to go to the election at the union’s biennial delegate conference, she needs a decision striking down the suspension of her membership.
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At the High Court on Thursday, Conor Power, barrister for Langan, said there was no power to suspend a member except following the outcome of a process, which did not occur in this case.
He said that fair procedures had not been applied and that Langan was not informed in advance of the decision to suspend her last March, was not specifically told what the reasons for the suspension were and then was allegedly informed that there was no appeal process to the decision.
Power said Langan was suspended as a regular Mandate union member and also as a member of the NEC. The union’s conference is on Monday morning in Portlaoise.
Power said the suspension related to “lawful but robust” Facebook comments made by Langan, which drew complaints from staff. He said his client defends the comments and said the complaints made had a damaging impact on his client and others. Counsel said five members in all were suspended.
He said that there was no advance notice “at all” of the proposal to suspend Ms Langan at the March 22nd meeting, which she could not attend due to circumstances and could not oppose because of the lack of notice.
Counsel said five members in all were suspended and that another member of the NEC who was suspended also attended the meeting without any prior notice of the suspension proposal.
Power said that Ms Langan is on disability allowance but has a job offer and that for the purposes of the rules she is employed and eligible to contest the election.
Lorna Lynch, barrister for Mandate, said the urgency for the expedited hearing was created by Langan herself as the decision to suspend her was taken on March 22nd and the election date was fixed 15 weeks ago and known to Langan.
Langan’s side launched an ex parte motion in the matter only last Friday, she said.
Lynch said Langan was told of the decision to suspend her by letter two days later and that she was given the reasons behind the complaints made with reference to union rules. Lynch said that Langan was ineligible to contest the election as she was unemployed and on disability allowance, as opposed to jobseekers’ allowance.
Lynch said that union rules say that an unemployed person is not entitled to contest for the NEC position and that this was “inescapable”.
Judge Marguerite Bolger said she hopes to have a decision in the “hugely urgent and serious” matter on Friday.
