Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a> last year she pursued a grievance upon finding out in a company newsletter in July 2024 that her job had been \u201cradically changed\u201d and she had been \u201cdemoted\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cI have to say, that was pretty stressful,\u201d Ms O\u2019Connell said of the discovery. \u201cI believe I was dismissed because I took a grievance about my job being changed in a newsletter to the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notice that her role was at risk of redundancy was given to her just two days after the conclusion of a grievance process, she said.<\/p>\n
Her former employer told the WRC that it was conceding unfair dismissal, leaving the level of redress the only matter for the WRC to decide.<\/p>\n
More than half a million euro was in dispute between the parties, including the losses from unemployment, ongoing loss of bonus in her new position, and alleged entitlements to stock options.<\/p>\n
Separate litigation between the parties in the High Court in Dublin and in the United States was also raised at the WRC.<\/p>\n
The Lionbridge Group had sued Ms O\u2019Connell in the US, accusing her of breaching a restrictive covenant by going to work for an alleged competitor, Vistatec, where she had secured an executive position.<\/p>\n
Ms O\u2019Connell, who was out of work nearly six months, said she interviewed for three roles and was offered two. She turned down a \u20ac60,000-a-year fixed-term position at the Irish Management Institute as a sales director while interviewing with Vistatec, she said.<\/p>\n
Mark Curran BL, appearing instructed by Mason Hayes and Curran for Lionbridge International ULC, put it to Ms O\u2019Connell in cross-examination that Vistatec was a competitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve only worked in the localisation industry. Where was I supposed to go?\u201d Ms O\u2019Connell said, adding she was not paid for garden leave in contrast to other \u201cgenuinely redundant\u201d employees. \u201cWhat was I supposed to do, sit around for a year on the dole?\u201d<\/p>\n
Adjudication officer Breiffni O\u2019Neill said he had the power to order the company to reinstate Ms O\u2019Connell.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo thank you,\u201d Ms O\u2019Connell said. \u201cI would just like to get my life back and move on, that\u2019s what I\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his decision, adjudicator Breiffni O\u2019Neill found that Ms O\u2019Connell\u2019s loss due to the dismissal was \u20ac142,984.<\/p>\n
He awarded the complainant her full losses.<\/p>\n
He had rejected the argument by the company that Ms O\u2019Connell had failed to sufficiently mitigate her losses during her job-hunt in view of the \u201cvery senior level at which she was employed\u201d and the \u201crelatively few\u201d openings available at that level of seniority. He found Ms O\u2019Connell\u2019s efforts to find new work were reasonable.<\/p>\n
He had also disagreed with Mr Curran\u2019s argument that a statutory redundancy lump sum of \u20ac30,000 already paid to the complainant ought to be subtracted from the award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An American multinational has been ordered to pay more than \u20ac140,000 to a veteran Irish executive after admitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,6465],"class_list":["post-364598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}