WRC awards three builders €30,000 over unfair dismissal after racism protest

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Workplace Relations Commission upheld unfair dismissal complaints by Stefan Puscasu, Valeriu Buscan and Catalin Mihai against their former employer, Rigotec International Ltd, and awarded each €10,000. The three Romanian builders had been dismissed days after taking part in a work stoppage at the Intel plant in Co Kildare to protest racist behaviour by colleagues.

The WRC rejected Rigotec’s claim that the dismissals were genuine redundancies caused by a downturn in work. The adjudicator was also not persuaded that the men had to be removed immediately from the site for fear they would sabotage production, and found an appalling lack of transparent procedures in the dismissals.