The Labour Court has set aside a Rights Commissioner’s decision and ordered University College Dublin to reinstate a lecturer from 24 November 2009, with back pay offset by earnings from other employment. The determination was signed on 16 December 2011. The Court found that UCD had breached the fixed-term work law by failing to recognise her entitlement to a contract of indefinite duration.
The worker had been employed on four successive fixed-term contracts. She argued that she qualified for a contract of indefinite duration and was not informed about vacancies; UCD said the final contract covered maternity leave and that vacancies were posted on an accessible internal HR website. The Court found that her work was unrelated to the work of the employees she was said to replace, and UCD showed no general reallocation of work. It upheld her complaint under section 9(2). Her separate complaint about vacancy access under section 10(1) was not well founded because UCD had announced vacancies on the internal HR website.