The Labour Party's small business spokesperson underpaid a Bolivian seamstress who said she resigned out of fear of being deported, a tribunal has noted in awarding the worker over €11,000 for multiple breaches of her employment rights.
The worker’s role had been described as a"business development interior designer" with a base salary of €30,000 in a job offer letter from her employer, which Ms Oropeza-Vedia had submitted in support of a work permit application in December 2020. She said she resigned on 7 February 2023 because she was afraid of being deported if found to be working illegally.'Fake law firm'
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Ireland, and her employer’s shop closed, she said she was initially"afraid to apply" for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment on the grounds that she had no employment permit.Ms Oropeza-Vedia said she repaid her employer for a further €950 solicitor’s fee incurred in connection with a work permit application in December 2020 and paid the Department of Enterprise the €1,000 fee herself.
The adjudicator noted:" showed me a document on her phone which she referred to as a 'contravention notice’ from the inspection service of the WRC which, she said, shows that she is obliged to pay the complainant the difference between the wages stated on her contract and the wages she was paid. In her decision, adjudicator Catherine Byrne wrote that although Ms O’Connell’s firm was already subject to a direction to pay €4,800 to the worker on foot of the WRC inspection, nothing had been paid as the worker had asked that the entire matter be dealt with by adjudication.