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WRC rules in favour of trawler crew

The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has ordered the owner of a fishing company to pay seven former crew members statutory redundancy.

The seven, all non-EEA nationals, had worked on the decommissioned St Rose and St Clair vessels, owned by Millbay Fishing Company Ltd.

The crew, represented by the International Transport Workers Federation, said that the company had argued that the crew’s entitlements under a separate scheme, called the Brexit Permanent Cessation Scheme, somehow also met a separate obligation for statutory redundancy.

The Brexit scheme, introduced by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) in 2022, was aimed at shrinking the fleet of large vessels whose target species were subject to quotas under the Common Fisheries Policy – quotas that had been cut arising from Brexit.

The crews of such vessels were also entitled to a share of the compensation paid out under this scheme. The WRC heard that Millbay was paid more than €2 million under the scheme.

Letter ‘not understood’

The seven’s representative said that a letter from the employer that was signed by the crew, but not understood by them, “clearly conflated the crew compensation arising from the Brexit Voluntary Permanent Cessation Scheme with the entitlements of the crew for statutory redundancy”.

Referring to BIM guidelines on the Brexit scheme, the adjudication officer pointed out that there was “no reference” that stated that these payments were made to replace any redundancy payment entitlement to employees.

The officer ordered the respondent to pay the statutory redundancy payment to the complainants within 42 days from the date of his decision.