A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator has blasted a security firm for its \u201cblatant flouting\u201d of national pay regulations for the sector as he awarded more than \u20ac30,000 to a worker subjected to non-payment of wages.<\/p>\n
Security officer Kipkorir Francis\u00a0Kiptoo is the 16th\u00a0worker to win an employment rights claim against BGS Security Ltd, trading as BGSS, in the past 18 months \u2013 with the total awards against the company in that time now standing at over \u20ac140,000.<\/p>\n
The company, whose clients included Centra, Spar and Supervalu stores in Dublin, also had its licence to operate static security guards revoked by the Private Security Authority (PSA) in June this year.<\/p>\n
The tribunal noted that Mr Kiptoo had given sworn testimony on his complaints under the Payment of Wages Act 1991, the Industrial Relations Act 1946, and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 at a hearing in May this year.<\/p>\n
Mr Kiptu\u2019s representative, David Cotter of the Independent Workers\u2019 Union (IWU), submitted payslips, work rosters and records of wages in support of a payment liability of \u20ac4,213.96 on the part of BGSS to his client.<\/p>\n
Mr Cotter submitted that BGSS \u201ceffectively ignored the requirements of the employment regulations order (ERO)\u201d for the security sector and had suffered an \u201cegregious breach of statutory rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
The trade union rep gave evidence that he had made \u201cnumerous efforts\u2026 to no avail, to establish contact in the hope of local agreed settlement\u201d with the management of BGSS, adjudicator Michael McEntee wrote.<\/p>\n
In his decision on the case, Mr McEntee wrote that the claim was \u201cone of numerous cases being taken by former employees against this respondent\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was satisfied that the company was on notice of the \u201ctime, date and place\u201d of the hearing and had failed to present any \u201cbona fide explanations\u201d for failing to attend.<\/p>\n
He found that Mr Kiptoo\u2019s trade union rep had set out a \u201ccomprehensive case supported by detailed evidence\u201d that his client was owed \u20ac4,213.96 in wages to which there had been no rebuttal or counterargument.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wages due will have to be paid,\u201d the adjudicator wrote.<\/p>\n
Mr McEntee also ordered BGS Security to pay Mr Kiptoo \u20ac26,500, one year\u2019s pay, in compensation for noncompliance with the employment regulation order in breach of the Industrial Relations Act 1946.<\/p>\n
He wrote that the national system of employment regulation orders was meant to be \u201ca safeguard for workers, and as importantly, to law-abiding employers\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlatant flouting of the order is egregious to fair commercial trading, good industrial practice and national industrial relations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr McEntee also awarded \u20ac2,000 to Mr Kiptoo for a breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 in BGSS\u2019s failure to provide a \u201csatisfactory contract of employment\u201d.<\/p>\n
The total awarded to Mr Kiptoo in the case was \u20ac32,713.96 \u2013 with today\u2019s decision bringing the total due to former BGSS staff on foot of findings of employment rights breaches since May 2024 to \u20ac140,560.71.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood that at least two more former employees of the company are to have cases heard by the WRC in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator has blasted a security firm for its \u201cblatant flouting\u201d of national pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,63,99,18054,180,18053,13382],"class_list":{"0":"post-16835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-centra","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-supervalu","14":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}