Bridesmaid-to-be feared missing sister’s wedding over new holiday policy at work

A bridesmaid-to-be has said she had a panic attack at work when her employer told her she would face a disciplinary meeting amid a row over taking annual leave for her sister’s wedding.

Discount retail boss James Dungan, co-owner of the Jimmy’s Superstore chain, has denied at the Workplace Relations Commission that he ordered a disciplinary process this spring to penalise the worker, Rebecca Rowley, for a WRC complaint challenging the alleged imposition of new rules on holidays without prior notice.

Rowley, a part-time shop worker with over three years’ service at the Jimmy’s Superstore in Carrick-On-Shannon, is pursuing complaints against operating company James Dungan Superstores Ltd under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994, the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and the Payment of Wages Act 1991.

In evidence, she said that on January 21st, her supervisor said there were “new annual leave rules” as of the start of the year, and asked her and all her colleagues to write their annual leave dates for the year into a diary that day.

The new rules were imposed without prior notice and required staff to book holidays in week-long blocks rather than a day at a time, with a week’s leave to be taken in the spring, Rowley said.

Rowley told the WRC she was due to be a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding this December, and would have to book two weeks at the end of 2026 to attend. She also needed a week off in June for a family holiday and another week in August for her sister’s hen party, she said.

She sought to take those weeks off, and not take any leave in the spring.

Rowley said she spoke the following day by phone with an area manager, Helena Egan, about the annual leave schedule, and was told by Egan it was “fine” to take the time in December.

Rowley said she also wrote to the company’s HR manager, Sonya Morrissey, with queries and taking issue with the new policy.

Morrissey came to the shop in on January 28th to issue new contracts to staff and met Ms Rowley with Egan, the WRC heard.

Rowley’s case was that Morrissey “withheld” her new contract from her because of her “disagreement” over the annual leave policy. Morrissey said she could not issue the contract without “making sure she understood the terms”.

Both Rowley and Morrissey proceeded to make complaints about each other’s alleged conduct at that meeting, the WRC heard.

Rowley said “everyone had agreed voices were raised” in their statements to a later disciplinary investigation. She got a verbal warning but never heard what was done about her complaint about the new policy.

The company’s assigned disciplinary manager, Darina Duffy, admitted under cross-examination that neither Morrissey nor Egan was disciplined.

When company director James Dungan came to the shop on February 6th and tried to speak with her, Rowley said she told him she wanted the company to address the matter in writing, citing the earlier meeting.

“He handed me two letters. ‘Because you’re not going to speak to me in person about annual leave, you’re going to have to attend a disciplinary meeting,’ Ms Rowley quoted the businessman as saying.

When cross-examined, Dungan denied saying this.

“I started getting really upset at the till,” Rowley said. Despite being sent out for a “breather” by her supervisor, she said she started to have a panic attack when she returned. Dungan then approached her, she said, stood so that she could not leave the till area and asked “Are you going to reconsider now? Are you going to reconsider now?”

“He kept repeating the same question until eventually I was able to say ‘no’,” she said.

One of the letters set out the position that since she had not selected annual leave dates for the spring, she was being assigned a week off the following month, she said. The other directed her to attend a disciplinary meeting.

She said she replied to Dungan that evening stating that she had put the dates she wanted off into the shop diary on January 21st, alongside her colleagues. She alleged in her letter that she was being penalised for raising her complaint with the WRC alleging that a new annual leave policy was being imposed without notice.

There was no reply, and after four weeks went by, she “had to take the annual leave”.

Her position was that this meant she would have to take unpaid leave at the end of the year to attend her sister’s wedding.

Dungan’s position was that a second week of leave was not denied to Rowley. He said he decided on February 6th to require Rowley to take “compulsory holiday leave”, and that it was also his decision to initiate a disciplinary investigation on foot of Morrissey’s complaint.

He said the company was not by then on notice of the worker’s first WRC complaint and he did not read an email from the complainant bringing up her December leave request and mentioning a WRC complaint until the following Monday.

He denied there was ever a request from the complainant for a full fortnight off over Christmas 2026.

Rowley said it was written in a diary at the shop, and it was not her job to make sure her supervisor had passed on the dates to head office.

Coercion

The complainant chiefly ran her own case, but adjudicator Gaye Cunningham allowed Geraldine Rowley, who had attended in support of the complainant, to participate in cross-examining company witnesses.

Geraldine Rowley asked Dungan why the respondent had become “more rigid” about annual leave. Dungan said there was “too much leave being pushed out to the end of the year”.

He accepted he did see that the complainant had been upset on February 6th, describing her as “a bit teary”.“Did you continue asking her yes or no questions, even though you saw she was upset,” Geraldine Rowley asked.

“She replied: ‘I was trying to prevent myself having a panic attack.’ That’s when I asked her was it ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and she shook her head,” Mr Dungan said.

The complainant put it to Dungan in cross-examination that the disciplinary process “was used as a tool for intimidation and coercion”.

“Ah, I completely disagree,” Dungan said.