A graphic designer who said he put up with a “toxic” workplace under a “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” magazine publisher for over a decade until he walked off the job last year has won €19,000 for constructive dismissal.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has upheld a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by the worker, Austin Lambe, against Irish Vintage Scene Ltd, trading as Print More, in a decision on Friday.
The company, noted by the tribunal to be in liquidation, had operated a print shop in Oranmore, Co Galway, and published the car magazines Irish Vintage Scene and Retro Classics.
At a hearing in July, Mr Lambe said he spent 12½ years working in an office in Oranmore, Co Galway with the owner of the company, Tom Heavey, earning a salary of €38,800, until he got up and left after an argument with his boss on 12th September 2024.
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“A lot of people came and went during those years. They’d usually last two years and leave. There was a very toxic work environment. My employer was a very hard person to work for,” he said.
He said that towards the end of his employment, Mr Heavey “wouldn’t even say hello”. “It was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,” he said of his boss’s conduct in the office.
He said that during an argument about a broken printing machine at lunchtime on Thursday, 12th September, 2024, Mr Heavey “made some comment that everything I do has to be checked”.
“I was so stressed and disappointed after 12-and-a-half years I just said to him: ‘Look, I’m leaving . . . I can’t sit here. When I come back tomorrow, I’m handing in my notice,” he said.
He said his doctor saw him the following day, Friday 13th, and advised him to take a break from the office.
He texted his employer that evening telling him he was not handing in his notice. He showed adjudicator Úna Glazier-Farmer a chain of text messages in which Mr Heavey replied: “Nope, you’ve handed in your notice, and I’ve accepted it.”
After Mr Lambe texted back that he had made a remark “in the heat of the moment” Mr Heavey replied: “Your job is no longer there.”
“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. There isn’t jobs for graphic designers in Galway, it’s a very small niche,” Mr Lambe said.
Ms Glazier-Farmer wrote in her decision that the respondent company “chose not to attend the hearing”.
“I accept the complainant’s account of Mr Heavey’s consistent oppressive and demeaning conduct,” she wrote.
“The actions and words of the respondent over a prolonged period of time amount to unreasonable conduct,” she concluded, upholding the complaint. She awarded Mr Lambe €19,055.40 in compensation.
Ms Glazier-Farmer based the level of compensation – nearly six months’ wages – on a finding that Mr Lambe’s health was “directly affected by the respondent’s conduct in the workplace towards him”.
Mr Lambe’s evidence was: “Everything I did was second-guessed and overanalysed. I was graphic designer, receptionist, printer, answering phones in the shop, 20 things at a time. Over the years, my job got more and more and more detailed. He micromanaged everything.”
“I had to remember every single customer . . . every inquiry we had. If a customer rang in two weeks earlier, I had to remember every detail. It wasn’t possible for me to do everything he wanted me to do,” Mr Lambe said.
“It irritated him. He would be verbally very annoyed. If he brought up a job [he would ask]: ‘What stage is that at?’ If I don’t have exactly what stage that job is at he’d get very agitated, very annoyed: ‘Why can’t you remember?” You’ve 50 jobs on the board, I can’t remember every detail,” he said.
He said that Mr Heavey had “a very big problem with staff chit-chatting” and that there were no personal conversations at the office when the boss was in.
“Why did I stay there so long? I’ve a mortgage and bills. Beggars can’t be choosers,” he said. “I’ve a thick skin. I put up with it,” he added. He said he didn’t attempt to invoke a grievance prior to his dismissal as he “didn’t want to make a toxic environment even more toxic”.
Ms Glazier-Farmer told Mr Lambe at the hearing there had been direct communication to state that Mr Heavey was “not turning up”.
Mr Lambe said: “If I was a betting man, I would have bet he would put the company into liquidation rather than pay me. He would begrudge me it.”