Farm labourer who worked 77-hour weeks for as little as €6.83 an hour is awarded €23,000 – The Irish Times

A farm labourer who worked 77-hour weeks for as little as €6.83 an hour during calving season at a Co Westmeath dairy farm has been awarded nearly €23,000 for employment rights breaches.

Edward Lattich was awarded the sum in orders for unpaid wages and leave entitlements and as compensation for workplace rights breaches on foot of complaints against his ex-employer, Mount Temple Dairy Farm Ltd in Co Westmeath.

Lattich, representing himself at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), said took up work with the company as a full-time farm labourer on December 10th, 2024, with a view to gaining experience in dairy farming.

His evidence was that in his first month, he typically started work at 8am and worked to 6pm or 7pm each workday.

His working hours increased in January last year as preparations for calving season began, when he started work at 5.30am and remained there until 8pm or 9pm, he said.

He worked “every day of the week”, he said, with just one day off in January 2025 due to illness and another the following month due to extreme weather, he said.

The 5.30am to 9pm working day continued until the end of his employment on April 21st, 2025, Lattich said.

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His evidence was that his pay was fixed at €2,500 a month “regardless of hours worked” and that he suffered “illegal” pay deductions as a result.

It meant his pay was as low as €6.83 an hour in March 2025, according to the findings of fact by the WRC in the case, which noted that Lattich worked at least 366 hours that month.

Although he said in evidence that he did not typically get breaks, he presented a spreadsheet calculating his working hours to the WRC which referred to a 30-minute daily break, the commission said.

He said he had worked 192 hours in December 2024, more than 353 hours in each month from January to March 2025 and 199 hours in April when he resigned.

Kelvin Hyland, for the respondent, argued that Lattich was “a keen young individual willing to gain experience in the dairy sector”, whom the farm had taken on to “learn in the role within a mutually beneficial environment”.

Lattich had agreed to a “set wage” when he started, it was stated. The employer’s position was that Lattich “did not receive the national minimum wage for each hour worked during his employment”, but this was because the complainant’s employment covered only “the busy period without the quieter period serving to reduce the overall hours worked”.

Hyland said the complainant’s working hour calculations were disputed. While the employer accepted the start times presented by Lattich, its position was that Lattich had two full hours of unpaid breaks each day and had meals at the farm.

“At the end of the working day, the complainant would socialise with the family, often remaining for dinner,” it was argued. There was no work done and this was “purely social in nature”, it was stated.

Lattich disputed this and said he was working on these occasions. He also disputed the length of the claimed two-hour breaks.

Although Lattich was required to work every second Sunday, he frequently came in on Sundays and days off “of his own volition” and got to work without being instructed to do so, it was stated.

The WRC noted the evidence of one unidentified respondent witness who said she had told Lattich to go home on a number of occasions. The complainant showed “no motivation” to leave and simply stayed on the premises, it was also stated.

There were also payments for fuel and services carried out on Lattich’s own farm, it was also argued.

The respondent accepted it owed Lattich wages of €4,268.07 and conceded certain breaches of the Organisation of Working Time Act in respect of Sunday pay and annual leave.

Adjudicator Brian Dolan favoured the complainant’s working time calculations, noting it was the respondent’s duty to keep working time records and that this was not done.

He said it did not stand to reason that two-hour breaks would be permitted during days on the farm. It was “not plausible”, he said, that Lattich, being a man with a young family, would spend “excessive time socialising at his place of work”.

Dolan said in his findings that Lattich’s average working week was 77 hours over the course of his employment.

He found that Lattich was underpaid by €10,420.13 during his employment and awarded that sum under the Payment of Wages Act 1991.

Further orders in relation to the non-payment of a Sunday premium, annual leave and public holiday entitlements, along with the failure to give Lattich his terms of employment in writing, brought the total awarded to €22,928.