MCR Group wins security guard’s transfer complaint

The Workplace Relations Commission found Peter Freeman’s complaint against MCR outsourcing Limited Ltd t/a MCR Group not well founded, ruling that the loss of a security contract did not amount to a transfer of an undertaking. The decision was dated 14 July 2023. Freeman had worked as a security guard at the Jamestown site. He said the incoming contractor turned him away in July 2020 and that the alternative role he accepted at Beaumont Hospital involved a long bus journey and taxi costs. MCR said the incoming contractor used its own staff and that Freeman was offered full-time work at the hospital. The WRC found that none of the eight former staff were taken on and no assets transferred. Under the regulations, the protections apply when an organised business or part of one moves to a new employer while retaining its identity. The adjudicator found that the loss of the security contract did not meet that test.