A GOLF COURSE office worker who was picked for redundancy after the club got into financial difficulties has been awarded €24,000.
The Equality Tribunal ruled that the club had erred when selecting the woman to take a bank-mandated redundancy. The tribunal found that even though the woman had made suggestions and another person had volunteered to take the redundancy, the woman was still made redundant.
The tribunal found that Donabate Golf Club had built a clubhouse for €3 million in 2008, but had suffered declining membership as the recession hit.
A number of staff had been laid off and the club’s bank had been backing them. However, a feasibility report reported that the club needed at least one more redundancy.
All of the staff were interviewed, but the club was under impression that nobody had volunteered. However, a bar manager had said that he would take redundancy.
The claimant, who had worked in the club for over a decade, said she had been working 54 hours a week and that “the banks were micro-managing the club because it owed €160,000 following a court case”. She added that the bank was “on her back on a daily basis to get reports to them”.
The claimant had been offered her job back as a consultant to work one day a week for €10,000 a year, around one quarter of her previous take home salary. She says it was not possible to do the volume of work in one day a week.
The tribunal found that “no realistic alternatives to redundancy were explored by the respondent and the procedures adopted by the respondent especially relating to the claimant were unfair, disjointed and flawed”. It awarded the woman €24,000 under the Unfair Dismissals Act.
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