A FORMER accountant with Blarney Woollen Mills has been awarded almost €68,000 in compensation after it was found he was likely to have been made redundant as a result of a personality clash with his boss.
An Employment Appeals Tribunal found the redundancy of Alfred Davis, of Vam Var Avenue, Bishopstown, Cork, was not “legitimate” and he was unfairly dismissed.
The tribunal was told that disagreements between Mr Davis and the company’s financial controller had resulted in rows that were described as “handbags being thrown”.
The tribunal found “there was clearly a personality difficulty” between Mr Davis and the financial controller. She had advised the company’s financial director that her relationship with him was “untenable”.
After a week-long examination of the finance department by the Promec business consultancy in November 2007, Mr Davis was told he was being made redundant.
Having joined the company in 1988, he was the most senior of the accounting staff and was paid a total package of about €1,500 a week.
He told the tribunal that he felt he had been set up and that the Promec report was not genuine, and was undertaken for the purpose of removing him.
“He felt that the real reasons for his removal were his poor relationship with the financial controller and his connections with a previous ownership regime that existed prior to the present chief executive coming to power.”
As far as Mr Davis was concerned the company had decided to get rid of him before the Promec report was ever prepared.
Married with two children, the youngest with special needs, Mr Davis was 48 when made redundant in February 2008.
Having devoted his life to the company, he knew that his age and the economic downturn would make it hard to get another job. After a period on the dole he had got a job paying €865 a week.
The finance director told the tribunal there may have been “something of a personality clash” between the financial controller and Mr Davis. He acknowledged that the disagreements had necessitated his own intervention, but described the events as “handbags being thrown”.
The tribunal found Mr Davis’s dismissal was “more likely” to have arisen from his poor relationship with the financial controller.
No attempt was made by the company “to effect any form of conciliation or grievance resolution” between them. “Instead, a report was hastily produced and precipitously acted upon.”
It said no consideration appeared to have been given to any other possible way forward.