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November 26, 1970 Factory — Statutory duty — Admitted breach by employer — Machinery not adequately fenced — Injury to machine operator — Accident caused by accidental error of operator in course of duty — Liability of employer — Whether blame to be attached to workman having regard to employer's breach of duty.

February 15, 1974 Master and servant — Wrongful dismissal — Gardener — Contract providing for six months' service and thereafter terminable annually — Obscene language on one occasion by efficient gardener — Provocation by employer — Whether summary dismissal justified.

November 10, 1970 Docks — Dock work — Waterside manufacturers carrying on loading and unloading operations from and into ships — Port transport work — Labour scheme equating “port transport work” with “dock work” — “Port transport work” not to include work of “waterside manufacturers” except where work that of “a public wharfinger and/or master lighterman and/or master stevedore” — Whether work carried on within exception — Whether “dock work” — Docks and Harbours Act, 1966 (c.28), s.58(1) — Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) (Amendment) Order, 1967 (S.I.1967, No. 1252), Sch. 2.

An employee who is eligible to make a complaint for unfair dismissal has to prove that he has been dismissed by the employer if the employer contests that the employee has in fact been dismissed. If the dismissal is not contested, all the employee has to do is to show that he has been dismissed. This constitutes the first stage of the proceedings in an industrial tribunal.

October 15, 1970 Industrial Training — Industrial training levy — Hotel and catering industry — Statutory Order including in scope of activities “supply… of food and drink to persons for immediate consumption” — Food and drink supplied to intermediary for consumption by other persons — Company supplying prepared meals to airlines — Consumed by passengers at mealtimes — Whether “immediate consumption” — Whether company engaged in “activity” within scope of Order — Whether levy properly imposed — Industrial Training Act, 1964 (c.16), s.4(l) — Industrial Training (Hotel and Catering Board) Order, 1966 (S.1. 1966, No. 1347), Sch. 1, para. 1(a) — Industrial Training Levy (Hotel and Catering) Order, 1968 (S.I. 1968, No. 921), para. 2(1) (h) (i).

February 5, 1974 Master and Servant — Redundancy — Reason for dismissal — Employers dismissing engineer alleging redundancy — Employee claiming compensation for unfair dismissal — Employers resisting claim on alternative ground that dismissal was fair — Whether employer entitled to change ground for dismissal from redundancy to lack of capability — Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (c.72), s.24(l)(a) (b), (2) (a), (6), (7).

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

October 13, 1970 Redundancy — Redundancy payment — Entitlement — Apprentices — Deeds of apprenticeship making apprenticeships assignable — Apprentices serving three masters during five‐year period — Whether “continuously employed” — Meaning — Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 (c.62), ss.1(1), 8 (1) (2) — Contracts of Employment Act, 1963 (c.49), Sch. 1, para. 10(1).

December 19, 1973 Industrial Relations — Unfair industrial practice — Complainant — Employee resigning from union — Union threatening employer with industrial action — Employee suspended from work on full pay — Whether industrial dispute — Whether employee “person against whom the action was taken” — Right to work — Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (c. 72), ss. 33(3)(a), 96(1), 101(1)(c), 105(1).

October 9, 1970 Master and Servant — Redundancy — Dismissal — Ill health — Union's letter re. redundancy — Whether “notice” of claim — Construction — Redundancy Payments Act, 1965 (c.62),s.21.