The Workplace Relations Commission has awarded stagehand and driver Stephen Preston €7,227.44 after finding that Metropolitan Films International Limited was his employer and that he was not given a proper written statement of employment terms. The decision was dated 15 December 2023.
Preston worked on film and television productions from 2002 until he was laid off in August 2018. The company argued he was a self-employed contractor engaged by separate production companies and that his complaints were late. The adjudication officer found that the recurring breaks between productions were lay-offs under the parties’ established working arrangement, and that the claims were submitted in time.
The officer found that the purported services contract was false and did not reflect Preston’s status as an employee. The award was four weeks’ pay. His separate complaint that unpaid wages during the lay-off period were an unlawful deduction was found not well founded, because wages were not payable while he was laid off and doing no work. A working-time complaint had been withdrawn.