Zimbabwean workers awarded €30k each after arriving in Ireland to find they had no jobs

Awards of more than €30,000 each to two Zimbabwean healthcare workers who travelled to Ireland believing they would have jobs, only to find the work did not materialise, have been upheld by the Labour Court.Tatenda Ncube and Brenda Mubaiwa had both been offered work by Unity Healthcare, which had a contract with Tusla to provide emergency care to vulnerable children, and were told they would be working at a centre in Virginia, Co Cavan.The pair were among nine Zimbabwean workers to take cases to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), saying they were left without work or money to pay basic bills by the company. They said it only told them almost a year after they arrived that its contract had been cancelled and there would be no work.The workers said they had been unable to take up alternative employment because of delays by Unity in issuing them with the letters they required under permit regulations to allow them to work for another employer.READ MOREThe WRC awarded the nine workers a total of €273,780 (€30,420 each), twice the wages they said they were owed for the six-month period they were permitted to claim for. It was the maximum amount it was entitled to order Unity to pay, having described the treatment of the workers as “particularly egregious”.In decisions just published relating to the first three appeals taken by the company, one of the awards, made to Silibaziso Nondo, was overturned as she had managed to take up a role with another company a month before the period covered by her case. The court found this severed the employment relationship with Unity and meant it had no jurisdiction to consider her claim.In the cases of Ncube and Mubaiwa, however, it found the company’s appeals had been filed one day after the 42-day limit, and so they were out of time. One of the company’s directors, Bruce Magama, told the court he had believed a firm of solicitors was dealing with the lodgement of the appeals but had been informed two days before the deadline it would not be doing so.He then struggled, and ultimately failed, to complete the process himself in the two days remaining. He argued that these circumstances met the criteria of “exceptional circumstances” required by the court to grant an extension.In its decision, signed by Labour Court deputy chair Niamh McGowan, the court said “no valid explanation to properly account for the delay has been furnished that offers an excuse or explains the delay in lodging an appeal to the Labour Court outside the statutory time limit”. “Insofar as excuses or reasons have been proffered, they do not, on any definition, amount to exceptional circumstances. In all the circumstances, the Court is of the view that a justifiable basis upon which an extension of time could be granted has not been put forward in this case.”During the original cases, the company had argued it tried to stop the workers travelling when it realised there would be no work for them. The workers denied this and told the court they had been required to contribute towards the cost of permits and accommodation in advance and then left without any income, causing them considerable hardship. One worker said there had been periods when she had been left “wondering where you’re going to get your next meal”.Decisions in the other six cases, which were heard on later dates, have yet to be published. At the time of the WRC decisions, Pretty Ndawo of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, which represented the workers along with DJM Legal, called for better protections for workers coming to Ireland under the permit system.