A printer who claimed he was put out of a job because he was plotted against after he called for a colleague’s sacking over alleged “poor performance” and a “ghetto attitude” on the shop floor has lost a claim for unfair dismissal at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
An employment tribunal found that a lack of “humility” on the part of the printer, Declan Walshe, contributed to “entirely dysfunctional” relations with his colleagues and manager at a Dublin printworks as it rejected his complaint against the operator, Poolville Ltd, trading as Labelcraft.
“If I come off as cocky, it’s only because I know what I’m doing. I’m proactive, and I don’t like doing sh**ty jobs,” Walshe told the WRC last year. “I was over in London, believe me, the pace in London is twice as fast as here, they wouldn’t tolerate the bulls**t there.”
Walshe, a litho printer on €48,000 a year at the firm’s plant in Tallaght, Dublin 24, lost his job after bosses decided he had made a “false allegation” in front of other staff in the works canteen on September 3rd, 2024, alleging his manager had gone through his bag.
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There was a dispute over the exact wording of the remark. Walshe said he had said the manager “must have had a sneak peek”.
The company’s financial controller said a remark by Walshe that “someone grassed him up and that [the manager] had gone through his bag” had been recorded in agreed disciplinary meeting minutes.
There was a dispute over the exact wording of the remark. Walshe said he had said the manager “must have had a sneak peek”. He said that, although it would be good practice not to have food or drink in the workshop, he had a jar of home-made yoghurt drink in the bag and that [the manager] was trying to “accrue points against me”.
Walshe had just days earlier filed a formal grievance against the site manager, accusing him of failing to manage a dispute with another printer at his workplace, Mr M, the tribunal heard – but instead found himself subject to a disciplinary inquiry.
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“It was actually the other employees who were plotting against me because of the fact that I was better at my job than they were,” said Walshe. “There was collusion going on behind my back.”
He said he tried to help M learn to run new machines brought in by the firm but found his efforts “thrown back in my face” by his colleague, whom he described as “like a petulant child with ADHD”.
‘Flat Dublin accent’
M “was very aggressive towards me on the factory floor”, said Walshe of one interaction in late 2023. “He said, ‘you think I know nothin’”, in a flat Dublin accent, and squared up to me on the factory floor”, the complainant added.
Adjudicator Catherine Byrne stopped Walshe at one point when he made a further reference to M’s Dublin accent.
“I’m from Dublin,” she said.
Walshe said it was “relevant to someone squaring up to you in a ghetto-type manner”.
“I find it offensive,” said Byrne.
Cross-examining Walshe, counsel for the employer Frank Drumm asked him: “You felt there was a conspiracy against you, they’re all ganging up on you ... When did you first begin to feel that?”
Walshe said he had “a pretty big argument” with M in the spring of 2024, and that shortly after that, the roster was changed so that he and M’s shifts would not cross over. He regarded this as unsatisfactory.
“I recommended [M’s] dismissal,” said the claimant.
‘Ghetto’
Walshe’s evidence was M had “got the job” through a supervisor at the site “because he’s from Clondalkin as well”. M also had a “confidant” – another long-serving printer from Clondalkin with whom he would get lifts to work from time to time, said Walshe.
“Was there a particular problem with being from Clondalkin?” asked Drumm.
“No, but if you’re going to come with a ghetto attitude and square up to me, I’m not taking it,” replied Walshe. “He’s talking to me as if he’s from the ghetto and he’s going to do something to me.”
He added there were “good people from Clondalkin” and referred to a previous job at a print plant in East Wall working with colleagues “from the toughest part of Sheriff Street” who were “working hard” to get away from criminality in their communities.
“If I come off as cocky, it’s only because I know what I’m doing. I’m proactive and I don’t like doing sh**ty jobs,” said Walshe.
“I was over in London, believe me, the pace in London is twice as fast as here, they wouldn’t tolerate the bulls**t there. I’m not going to be apologetic about that. I know what I’m doing and keep myself fit, so I outperform them,” said Walshe.
In her decision, the adjudicator decided that Walshe had an “entirely dysfunctional” relationship with his manager and colleagues.
“This dysfunction was caused by him, due to his failure to behave in a supportive manner and to manage the relationships in his workplace constructively and with a degree of humility,” she wrote.
She said it was “unusual” for a worker to go to management to call for a colleague’s sacking. “Most people manage their colleagues’ deficits by supporting or ignoring them,” she wrote.
Walshe’s remark about his manager in the canteen was “the last straw” for the company, she decided.
She dismissed Walshe’s challenge to his dismissal and wrote: “Any reasonable employer would have done the same thing.”
