The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in the UK has decided that the compensation accorded to fishermen laid off due to the state’s Brexit scrappage scheme doesn’t nullify their statutory redundancy rights. As part of the case, it has been suggested that a successful outcome could open up a floodgate of claims from both Irish and EU fishermen.
The fishing firm, receiving £2 million in taxpayer money after scrapping two vessels but refusing to pay the laid-off fishermen their redundancy entitlements, is now ordered to pay a combined sum of £42,000. Millbay Fishing Company Ltd’s legal representatives had argued that these workers receiving both compensation and redundancy was unjust since each had received £1,000 annually according to the post-Brexit decommissioning plan to reduce the Irish fishing fleet.
Michael O’Brien of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, who represented the employees under the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, claimed that the desired redundancy payments were insignificant compared to the £2 million the company received from the state via the Brexit Voluntary Permanent Cessation Scheme. The WRC upheld these claims on Tuesday.
The seven affected employees, all Ghanaian, namely Benjamin Abban, Francis Effah, Francis Egyir, Vincent Kabu, Sampson Koomson, Gordon Kojo Monkah and Kwesi Prempah, had all been associates aboard the St Clair and the St Rose vessels for the Millbay Fishing Co Ltd. Their employment fell under the Atypical Work Permit Scheme, which lets the Irish fishing industry employ non-European Economic Area workers without offering them residency rights in Ireland. They were serving as employees of the vessel’s owner rather than as contractors.
The tribunal mentioned that Millbay was granted €2,005,885 to decommission the St Clair and St Rose as part of the Brexit Voluntary Cessation Scheme managed by Bord Iascaigh Mhara in 2022 according to the union’s submission. Each worker was rewarded €1,000 for every year they spent working on the decommissioned vessels as per the scheme.
In a claim presented by the labour union, it was argued that a letter received by seamen at the moment of the scrappage scheme disbursement on September 21st, 2022, indistinctly grouped the compensation due to the crew from the scheme and the crew’s legal redundancy benefits. According to the legal file, upon making a call to the firm’s proprietor regarding the statutory redundancy disbursements for its members, Mr O’Brien, representative of the trade union, faced derogatory comments. Moreover, a subsequent email remained unresponded.
In another legal case presented by the union of seamen, seven workers claimed reimbursement varying from €3,443.50 to €8,856 upon employment termination based on their service duration with the total redundancy payments being demanded amounting to €42,550. For the ship owner, Liam O’Flaherty stated his client didn’t retain those millions invariably as the owners usually have significant mortgages and other payables once their business stops.
The counsel also depended on the BIM’s Seafood Taskforce Report, published in October 2021. According to him, it stated the decommissioning scheme-based compensation for crew members “should fundamentally serve as a redundancy payment”. It was hinted in the report that such payments were “meant as redundancy in place of, not in addition to redundancy disbursements”, he further said.
This viewpoint, as argued by the seven, would put mostly Irish or EU fishermen at a loss as they are mostly remunerated through profit sharing from the captures instead of employment agreements. Non-EU nationals were ineligible for the fisherman share program, he mentioned. O’Flaherty stated that Irish and EU fishermen are not granted a “redundant advantage” and if the seven were to win, a rush of claims from Irish and EU fishermen stating discrimination due to receiving only one payment “relative to their nationality”, could be a possible outcome.
The ITF submitted an answer from the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to a question raised in January 2023 in parliament which questioned about the scrappage scheme and the former work permit scheme. The Minister’s answer was, “The legislations surrounding employment rights in Ireland are applicable to all workers, be it national or foreign, aboard Irish registered vessels.”
In explaining the Redundancy Payments Act regulations, the official underscored that the obligation of granting statutory redundancy payment to qualifying workers rests on the employer. During his rulings on seven cases, arbitrator Jim Dolan cited the argument of the boat owner that deemed it unjust to award the fishermen on the special work permit track double payments; while those who received pay based on a proportion of the haul would get just a single payment. Despite this, Dolan discovered no indication within the Brexit decommissioning project’s rules that compensation to employees was aimed at substituting redundancy rights. Mr Dolan concluded that the seven complaints related to redundancy were substantiated, hence mandating the firm to provide each worker with a statutory redundancy payment.