Carlow County Council has defeated a penalisation complaint brought by employee Adrian Gates after he alleged that workplace changes followed a bullying complaint. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found the complaint was not well founded in a decision dated 23 March 2023.
Gates said changes to alarm settings reduced his overtime and also cited travel expense refusals, mileage checks and his removal from a promotion competition. The Council said the alarm changes were routine engineering decisions and mileage checks were required for audit purposes.
The adjudicator found the alarm changes were legitimate management action and were not shown to target Gates. The other matters were not adequately supported as bullying or penalisation; the decision described them as largely industrial relations issues. It also noted the Council had acknowledged an administrative mistake in the promotion competition, but found no credible evidence that Gates had been targeted personally.
To establish penalisation, Gates had to show that a protected act had occurred and that the alleged detriment would not have happened but for that act. The WRC concluded that the complaint had not been made out. No monetary award is stated in the decision.