WRC awards Habib Kannas €6,126 for unfair dismissal

The Workplace Relations Commission found that Habib Kannas was unfairly dismissed and ordered O.F. Fishing Ltd. to pay him €6,126. It also awarded him €350 for unpaid holiday pay. The decision was dated 30 November 2022. Kannas said he returned from Egypt in January 2021 and was available for work, but the company neither gave him work nor told him he had been dismissed. The company did not attend the hearing, despite being notified. The adjudicator accepted Kannas's uncontested evidence that he had repeatedly asked to return to work. His contract provided for payment based on 39 hours a week during periods when the boat was inactive, and the €6,126 award covered the remaining weeks of his contract. The WRC also found he had not received holiday pay for 427 hours worked in July 2020. It had no jurisdiction over his working-time complaint about rest breaks and excessive hours under rules for work at sea, or his minimum-wage complaint because he had not met the required prior pay-statement steps; the merits of those two complaints were not decided.