WRC finds against Power City employee in family-status complaints

The Workplace Relations Commission found against Power City employee Eoin Deans on a family-status discrimination complaint, concluding that he had not established facts from which discrimination could be inferred. The decision was dated 17 December 2024. Deans said his caring responsibilities made Sunday and public-holiday rosters difficult and that this affected his opportunities at work. Power City said its stores operated seven days a week and needed warehouse staff on Sunday rosters. The adjudicator found the company had accommodated one weekend off each month and that Deans had agreed to a rotation of Sundays. The adjudicator also rejected Deans’s claim that the training complaints amounted to family-status discrimination, finding the training was generic and did not meet the legal definition of vocational training. A separate complaint about written notice when his job changed from part-time to full-time was found to have been filed outside the time limit, leaving the WRC without jurisdiction to hear it. The mandatory-training complaint was not well founded; the adjudicator noted that Deans had not contested evidence that the training was free and paid for.