WRC awards newspaper distributor’s worker €750 over unpaid allowance

The Workplace Relations Commission awarded Leszek Zero €750 after finding EM News Distribution Ireland Limited had not paid him a promised working-alone allowance. The decision was dated 1 September 2021. Zero worked as a production planner and said he was promised €50 a week for working alone, but received no allowance from December 2019 until the end of March 2020. The company said the allowance was payable only after probation and disputed that he had been promised it earlier. The adjudication officer preferred Zero’s evidence, noting that the interviewer who could address the alleged promise was not at the hearing. The officer also found no term in Zero’s contract limiting the allowance to staff who had completed probation. The €750 award represented 15 weeks of the allowance and is subject to statutory deductions.