LABOUR’S FORMER SMALL business spokesperson Juliet O’Connell underpaid a Bolivian employee who feared losing her work permit if she didn’t cooperate, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has ruled. 

The WRC found that O’Connell, a Labour councillor in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown in Dublin, underpaid Patricia Oropeza-Vedia and had her regularly carry out tasks that were not in her job description.

O’Connell resigned this evening and will not be running in June’s local elections. In a statement the Labour Party said: “The findings of this case are completely at odds with our Party values and long established position on protecting, promoting and strengthening workers’ rights.”

Oropeza-Vedia had been hired to manage and develop the soft furnishings and interior design department of the tailoring business but the WRC heard that she spent half of her time manning the shop counter or working as a seamstress. 

The role had been described by O’Connell as a “business development interior designer”.

Oropeza-Vedia came to Ireland on a student visa in 2019, when she approached O’Connell looking for part-time work. Student-work visas do not allow people to work full-time.

O’Connell told her she was looking for a full-time employee and Oropeza-Vedia agreed to take a full-time position as long as she could get a work permit.

The WRC heard that she “felt pressurised to do the additional work” while being”afraid that if she didn’t cooperate, her work permit would be withdrawn”.

“It is my view that the description of the complainant’s job as an interior designer fails to explain the reality of her role in the respondent’s business, which was to look after the customers at the counter on days that the shop had no counter assistant,” WRC officer Catherine Byrne wrote in her judgement.

“In considering complaints of this nature, the Labour Court has rejected any defence that such breaches are minimal or technical in nature.”

Oropeza-Vedia was awarded the equivalent of three weeks’ wages for this breach of terms of employment law.

The WRC also found she was entitled to €7,378 in compensation for underpayment, although this could have been higher if the scope of the complaint was not limited to a portion of Oropeza-Vedia’s time in the job, according to the ruling.

Byrne said: “I am satisfied that the complainant was not paid the wages that were properly payable for the entire duration of her employment with the respondent; however, I am limited in my enquiry to the period from February 8th 2022 until February 4th 2023.”

That underpayment came in multiple forms, according to Byrne’s findings. 

“For 51 of the 52 weeks that she worked for the respondent, the complainant worked one extra hour for which she was not paid the wages that were properly payable.”

Oropeza-Vedia said she resigned on 7 February 2023 because she feared being deported if found to be working more hours than her work visa permitted. 

She also said that “during the relevant timeframe, the complainant worked 16 hours’ overtime for which she was not paid”.

Another aspect of the complaint against O’Connell was that Oropeza-Vedia did not get holiday pay she was due.

“When she resigned on 7 February 2023, the complainant was entitled to be paid for 10 days’ holidays.  From the evidence on her payslips, I am satisfied that she was not paid for these holidays,” Byrne said.

Scammed by a fake lawyer 

When looking to get a work permit that would allow her to work full-time, Oropeza-Vedia and O’Connell had a meeting with a person they thought was a solicitor from a firm called “THL Legal”.

According to Byrne, she was provided with a copy of an invoice that showed O’Connell paid THL Legal €1,500 for help with the work permit application. 

“The invoice is extremely suspect, with misspellings, very poor layout and an indication that the company has offices in “Dublin, Kildare and Cape Town,” Byrne said.  

After a few months of no progress, Oropeza-Vedia discovered that THL Legal was a fraud. 

She said that she was distressed when she discovered she was working illegally. 

O’Connell then brought her to a Garda station to report the fake law firm and introduced her to a solicitor who could speak Spanish, who helped her with an application for an emergency extension of her student visa. 

She said that she paid the solicitor €1,045 for this “emergency card.”

When the pandemic hit in early 2020, things became difficult for her financially but she said she was afraid to apply for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) because she didn’t have a work permit. 

Eventually, a permit was granted in 2021 based on the job she had secured with O’Connell’s company. 

She provided a copy of the permit which shows that her employer was Juliet O’Connell Limited and that her weekly pay was €576.92.

However, when she applied to renew her permit last year, her request was denied because she was making less money than the €576.92 per week that had been detailed in her application.