Engineer awarded €25,000 after dismissal over holiday

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Engineer awarded €25,000 after dismissal over holiday
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By Andrew Bushe
Wednesday June 20 2007

AN ENGINEER who ended up crying outside his workplace after being told he might not be allowed a holiday to get married, has been awarded €25,000 compensation for unfair dismissal.

Rabi Swain of Marina View, Passage West, Co Cork, who is originally from India, worked for almost two years for M/A-Com Eurotec, a division of Tyco Electronics, of Loughmahon Technology Park, Blackrock.

He told an Employment Appeals Tribunal he had initially worked part-time for the company while he was studying for a PhD at UCC, but ended up doing 40 to 50 hours.

After four months, he got a permanent job designing components for manufacturing. He said he had to help others and then work late to finish his own jobs. He felt his work permit was threatened.

He was promoted to senior engineer but said he was being bullied by his manager and was working until 9pm every night and at weekends.

When he made plans to marry his girlfriend in India, he tried to get a commitment that he would get six weeks' holidays, to which he was entitled. The manager gave no response other than to 'pile on the work", but eventually told him he was not getting his holidays.

He was then told the most he would get would be two weeks, but even this was not certain.

The manager then pushed him out through the door and threatened to call the gardai if he ever entered the building.

A receptionist noticed him crying outside.

- Andrew Bushe

Sleepy

Mental Note: never work for Eurotec. 25k doesn't sound near enough compensation for the exploitation the guy put up with. Probably barely even covers the overtime he was due.

Does anyone know if the manager got the sack?

jhegarty

It should have been 100k .... teach them a lesson...

Sposs

A receptionist noticed him crying outside.

That's a fairly pointless part of the story. They should have been fined more
and made an example out of.

digitally-yours

Yes i personally think 25K is nothing.

Its a small for what your man has gone through

Zambia

F**king disgrace ... I cant find an email link to send them an email over what a crowd of utter W**kers they are

Sposs

Sposs wrote:

That's a fairly pointless part of the story.

It's the indo.

egan007

M/A-Com Eurotec F**king disgrace Seconded.

It's up to everyone inIreland that is being pushed around to take a case.
So many hard working people getting F**ked by these B****ards

/Vent.....

Darragh29

Sleepy wrote:

Does anyone know if the manager got the sack?

Doubt it, probably got promoted. Workplace bullying being made a criminal matter is long overdue. Only problem we'd have with such a set up in this country is that we'd have to double our prison space to accomodate all the thugs we have in managerial positions in Ireland.

Darragh29

Zambia232 wrote:

F**king disgrace ... I cant find an email link to send them an email over what a crowd of utter W**kers they are

If you find one, will you PM it to me??? I'd do likewise. I'm looking myself.

Darragh29

Zambia232 wrote:

F**king disgrace ... I cant find an email link to send them an email over what a crowd of utter W**kers they are

Think I found it...

http://www.macom.com/

hollowfloors

I know this will look a bit dodge as it is my first post (!) but the Indo didn't print the full story... I've worked for this company and was treated excellently. The managers there are some of the finest, most professional bosses I've ever had.



Don't judge an entire company on one individual's claims or one incident. I never had any problem getting the holidays I needed and never had any issues!

Newaglish

hollowfloors wrote:

I know this will look a bit dodge as it is my first post (!)

Indeed it does!

hollowfloors wrote:

I've worked for this company and was treated excellently. The managers there are some of the finest, most professional bosses I've ever had.

Don't judge an entire company on one individual's claims or one incident. I never had any problem getting the holidays I needed and never had any issues!

Are you Irish? (Yes, I just went there!)

I suspect it's easier to bully someone who's from another country and would likely (bit of a generalisation) have less friends in the organisation (as a result of being new to the country/area etc.)

hollowfloors

Newaglish wrote:

Are you Irish? (Yes, I just went there!)

Yes, I'm Irish!

There's actually quite a high percentage of foreign people working there, lot's of people from India and surrounding countries, so an employee's nationality isn't really taken into account. It's a foreign owned company so the top manager at the Cork plant isn't even Irish himself! I suspect this was an isolated incident which is gaining a lot of publicity in turn giving the company an undeserved bad rep!

Ibjiba

Employment Appeals Tribunal cases always make for a good read. It is surprising how many people don't know anything about their rights, nor do they seem to fight much for them. Happy to see this case ended up well, though it would have been better had it never happened of course..

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Kinetic^

The EAT can only award what was lost. Had he taken it to the High Court you can guarantee it would've been a hell of a lot more!!!

stepbar

When you do talk about weddings and all that, the boss was saying (just this evening!) when he got married back 10 odd years that he went looking for 3 weeks off (He was entitled to the time off). He was told where to go He's now a bank manager so it didnt effect him too much. In all seriousness I think the holiday request was the straw that broke the camel's back. However he was threated very badly IMO.

the_syco

I wonder how much notice he gave for the six weeks away, and what time of the year? I ask this, as if you look for 6 weeks away at a time when a lot of other people are on holiday, the answer would be no, even if he played the race card, or any other card he had.

Example: 6 weeks holidays during the middle of the summer is usually a big no-no.

Newaglish

hollowfloors wrote:

I suspect this was an isolated incident which is gaining a lot of publicity in turn giving the company an undeserved bad rep!

Unless there were only two people working in the office, other people should have noticed what was going on and done something about it. I think it must have been fairly obvious he was being bullied

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

McSpud

Did this guy look for 6 weeks holidays in one allocation? How much notice did he give?

The story sounds bad what are the full details?

Standard contracts may only allow 2-3 weeks holidays in one allocation & may require significant notice period. Presumably the employee signed this contract...