Labour Court awards agency worker €600 for missed daily rest

The Labour Court awarded Saulius Karaliunas €600 after finding Flexsource Limited breached daily-rest rules, in a determination dated 31 January 2013. It found a separate complaint about advance notice of working hours was not well founded. Karaliunas, an agency worker who received daily texts offering work, had less than 11 hours’ rest on 11 occasions. Flexsource argued that an exception for shift work applied, but the Court said he did not work according to a particular pattern and the exception did not apply. The Court found that Karaliunas was free to decline offered hours without penalty, so the section 17 rule did not apply. The Rights Commissioner had earlier dismissed the complaints after Karaliunas did not attend the hearing; the Labour Court then considered his appeal.