Catering worker who says boss’s conduct forced her to quit wins €21,700 at WRC

A catering worker who said she had to quit her job over her boss’s conduct towards her, which she said included referring to her as “that f**king c**t”, has won €21,700 for multiple rights breaches.A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator also noted the unnamed worker had delayed filing her complaints out of “fear for her safety based on the respondent’s threatening and intimidating behaviour towards her”.The worker was granted anonymity in a decision published on Thursday by the WRC on the exceptional basis of “threatening and intimidating behaviour” from the respondent after she resigned, an adjudicator wrote. She had been working part-time for the company, Richale Developments Ltd, since 2018 without ever getting a raise on her €10-an-hour pay, despite multiple increases to the national minimum wage in that time. READ MOREThe employment tribunal has now ordered the Co Kerry-based firm, which operates school catering services and a function room in the county, to pay the worker the sum for constructive dismissal and breaches of her pay and leave rights. The tribunal did not extend anonymity to either the company or a director who was in place during the worker’s employment, John McHale. The worker gave evidence that during her employment, she was “frequently subjected to verbal abuse from McHale”. In the four months before her employment ended, McHale was in the practice of relaying work directions to her via another person rather than speaking to her directly, the complainant told the WRC. Her evidence was that McHale’s practice was to refer to her as “that f**king c**t” at work, the WRC noted. She told the WRC she started with the firm in September 2018 as a catering assistant and worked in several of its locations, including the McHale’s Function Room venue in Co Kerry, and on school catering contracts delivered by the respondent. Her evidence was that her hours were variable and pay was fixed at €10 an hour when she started. It “never increased” before she quit in 2025, she said. On numerous occasions, she was not paid in full or on time, and she had to chase up on payments, she said. There was no premium rate of pay for working Sundays at the function room or for public holidays, she said, and when she asked about pay during her annual leave, McHale told her that she “did not need it”. McHale failed to attend a hearing last month, citing “work commitments”, the tribunal noted. Addressing the worker’s complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the adjudicator, Úna Glazier-Farmer, accepted as uncontroverted the worker’s evidence of McHale’s “intimidating, hostile and abusive conduct towards her”. It was an unfair constructive dismissal, the adjudicator wrote, awarding the worker €10,530 for her losses over roughly nine months’ unemployment. Glazier-Farmer found there was reasonable cause to expand her jurisdiction to make awards under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and the Organisation of Working time Act 1997 complaints from six months to a year. Ms Glazier-Farmer awarded a further €11,170 for failures by the employer to pay wages or statutory leave entitlements, bringing the total awarded in the case to €21,700.