Fashion boutique worker sacked after she complained about lack of toilets and running water

Seán McCárthaigh

A fashion boutique in Dublin has been ordered to pay €7,500 compensation to an employee who was fired after she complained to the Health and Safety Authority that it had no bathroom or running water.

The Workplace Relations Commission ruled that GB Agencies Galway Limited, which trades as the YAYA boutique on Georges Street Upper in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, had penalised shop assistant Fiona Bird in breach of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.

The WRC found that Ms Bird was summarily dismissed from her job shortly after she had made a protected disclosure to the HSA when she notified the regulatory body that the shop had no washroom facilities for staff.

The boutique – which operates in partnership with the Dutch lifestyle brand, YAYA – had claimed that Ms Bird’s dismissal after five months in the job was solely due to her poor performance during her probation period.

However, the WRC said it was “an attempt to shore up a highly problematic dismissal after the event.”

Ms Bird, who had previously worked for up to 10 years in the Pamela Scott boutique in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, told the WRC that she was given no clear reason when she asked why she was being let go after her employer arrived into the store and told her to leave on May 15th, 2023.

She said she was shocked at her dismissal as there had been no suggestion from her manager, the owner of the boutique or customers that they were unhappy with her work.

Ms Bird said she was never advised that she had to serve a probationary period and believed she was being penalised “in the most grievous way” for having raised an issue with the HSA.

She outlined how she had contacted the HSA two weeks earlier about the fact that she had no access to a bathroom or running water in her workplace for five months.

Ms Bird explained that the HSA had subsequently contacted her employer about the matter.

She recalled that the company’s director was unhappy about being contacted by the HSA but that a staff bathroom had been installed within a few weeks.

The director claimed that work on sanitary facilities was about to be carried out anyway.

He denied that he had been particularly vexed by the notice from the HSA and he was not aware that Ms Bird had contacted them until she had submitted a complaint to the WRC.

Ms Bird told the WRC that she was initially happy in the new store when she joined in December 2022 although there were inevitable start-up problems that needed to be ironed out.

Ms Bird recalled that staff sometimes worked in their coats and scarves because the heating in the boutique was poor.

However, she claimed the biggest issue was the lack of a staff bathroom and no onsite hand-washing facility, although she was told that they were due to be provided.

The company’s director gave evidence that he had concentrated on the shop when it opened before Christmas in 2022 but that the back area was still unfinished.

The director acknowledged that there was no heating for up to three weeks in January.

However, he said he had an arrangement with an adjoining coffee shop that the boutique’s staff could use the public bathroom available to the café’s customers as and when required.

Ms Bird said such an arrangement was not always convenient or satisfactory.

WRC adjudication officer Penelope McGrath accepted that it was “not a particularly dignified solution” to the lack of onsite facilities.

Ms McGrath said they should have been installed as part of the refit of the shop “and not seen as an added extra to be dealt with down the line.”

She said the matter, which was raised with the shop’s manager whom she expected would have passed it onto the boutique’s owner, was not given any priority.

The director said the issue was never raised with him, although Ms McGrath noted that no staff member who had worked with Ms Bird was called to give evidence.

Ms McGrath noted that he had provided “a spreadsheet of sorts” which seemingly demonstrated that Ms Bird’s sales figures were not as good as her other five colleagues.

However, she also observed that the complainant was never advised during her employment that there was an issue with her sales figures.

Ms McGrath said she was persuaded by the evidence that the employer was well aware that Ms Bird had made a complaint to the HSA about her working conditions.

Rather than acknowledging the complaint, the WRC official said the director was greatly put out by Ms Bird’s actions.

Ms McGrath said she was satisfied that her performance was never an issue until she had made the complaint to the HSA.

The WRC also ordered the boutique to pay Ms Bird an additional €1,890 for various breaches of employment legislation including a failure to provide her with a written contract and changing the terms of her employment in relation to a probationary period.