Penalisation case taken by Siptu official against union rejected by WRC

Adjudication Officer finds Ger Malone failed to establish she had been discriminated against by her employer as a result of making protected disclosures

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A case taken by a long-serving Siptu official who alleged her career had been “sabotaged” after she made a series of protected disclosures alleging wrongdoing by senior managers at the organisation has been rejected by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

In a yet-to-be-published 136-page decision, adjudicating officer Marie Flynn said 12 of the 17 protected disclosures Ger Malone had said she made against the union did not meet the criteria set out under the Act, and she could see no evidence of penalisation in any of the 29 claimed.

Several other complaints were not considered by Ms Flynn as they were adjudged to have been time-barred.

Ms Malone, a shop steward at the Ray-Ban factory in Waterford and former Siptu national executive council member before she took up a full-time organisation role with the union more than 20 years ago, had made complaints under the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014.

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Had she been successful, she could have been awarded up to five years’ salary.

During the case, Ms Malone alleged she had been repeatedly undermined and humiliated by more senior officials at the union while attempting to represent workers at third-party employers, including Carlow and Kilkenny county councils.

She also highlighted issues concerning representation structures within Siptu itself, where staff are required to join the union they work for and are generally represented by a staff representative council (SRC).

During protracted hearings, she said this system was worse than the one unions routinely disparaged at Ryanair and that the entire membership of the SRC had signed a letter criticising it as entirely out of step with the union’s publicly stated values. She repeatedly suggested it limited her ability to be represented at the hearings.

She criticised the fact that senior managers had a vote in electing members of the SRC, which she chaired for several years, and alleged they had played a part in ensuring she lost elections because they wanted to minimise her influence.

A small number of Siptu staff attended some of the hearings to support her, and at least one declined to give evidence because they said it would have the potential to cause them difficulties in their work environment.

Siptu, represented at the hearings by one of its former officials, Karan O’Loughlin, disputed much of Ms Malone‘s evidence, however, and denied any acts of penalisation had taken place. It characterised Ms Malone as an official who repeatedly declined to follow instruction from line managers and, in one instance, opened the union up to a potential defamation case.

The WRC adjudicator accepted that five of the intended protected disclosures could be validly regarded as such, but said the remaining 12 did not meet the required criteria under the Act.

She said Ms Malone had failed to establish that she had been penalised in any of the ways set out under the Act and rejected claims made in her closing statement that she had been unfairly treated.

“I strongly refute the complainant’s assertion that she did not receive a full and fair hearing into this case,” she wrote.

“During the course of the hearing, it became apparent to me that the complainant expected me to investigate the conduct of the respondent organisation, particularly the form of representation it makes available to its staff.”

She said she was restrained by the Act in what she could investigate and had done all she could to allow Ms Malone put forward evidence.

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