This article is from page 2 of the 2010-02-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
The Labour Court has thrown out complaints made by a group of east- ern European workers that they were discriminated against by well-known Clare engineering firm, Clare Civil Engineering Ltd.
The Labour Court threw out the complaints by general labourers: Lat- ivans, Vladislavs Arbuzovs, Valerijs Myjasojedovs, Sergejs Plonkins and Croat, Igor Ostojic after finding that they failed to establish the primary facts and accordingly their claim must fall at the first hurdle.
The Labour Court official dealing with the case, Caroline Jenkinson concluded that: “Documentary evi- dence reviewed by the court further showed that in some cases the com-
plainants enjoyed superior rates of pay in comparison to some of their Irish counterparts. The court there- fore cannot draw a conclusion that discrimination on grounds of race occurred in this case.”
According to the report, the claims of discriminatory dismissal by Mr. Arbuzovs, Mr. Plonkins and Mr Ostojic were withdrawn at the hear- ing of the appeal before the Labour Court on December | last, while the claim by Mr Ostojic that he suffered victimisation and a _ victimisatory dismissal was also withdrawn at that hearing.
However, the complainants’ case that each suffered discriminatory treatment on account of their race contrary to the Employment Equal- ity Act on foot of non-implementa-
tion of the Registered Employment Agreement (REA) for the Construc- tion Industry proceeded.
Counsel for the company denied the allegations of discrimination against all four complainants.
She informed the court that the company was a small family owned business with no dedicated human resources representative. She submit- ted that both Irish and non-national employees were all treated the same. At the time of the complainants’ employment they employed approxi- mately 50 staff, about 10 per cent of whom were foreign nationals.
The company submitted “that they did not issue any staff with contracts of employment and the terms and conditions of employment of all staff were dealt with in the same way.
Therefore, not issuing contracts to the complainants and not employing them in accordance with the REA and other legislation could not be seen to be discriminatory”.
She submitted that all employees were treated the same way in rela- tion to pay. Their pay was negotiated when they started on an individual net basis and was dependent on their experience.
In the report of the Labour Court officer, Caroline Jenkinson said: ‘In relation to the more specific dis- crimination claim that their race was a factor in the non-implementation of the REA, the evidence adduced at the hearing was that all workers, Whether of Irish origin or non-Irish origin, were treated in the same man- ner.”