Cork seamstress awarded more than €75k after firm forced her out

A veteran seamstress has been awarded more than €75,000 after she was forced out of her job by her Cork employer who unilaterally cut her hours, banned her from taking work home, and falsely claimed she had reached a mandatory retirement age.

Mary Kenneally was treated “exceptionally shabbily” in an orchestrated attempt to wind down her employment by Cork-based Carr Sewing Machines Limited, according to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) .

She had worked as a seamstress for the company for 17 years. Her manager Marie McCarthy described her as an excellent, reliable worker who frequently took large bags of alterations home to ensure work was completed on time.

However, the WRC heard the relationship deteriorated dramatically in 2024, when the owner became “very annoyed” over a tax discrepancy, and began raising issues over a bookkeeping practice that predated Ms Kenneally’s employment.

She was informed while on holiday that her working week was being cut from four days to three. She was subsequently banned from bringing garments home to work on, which further reduced her earning capacity.

The company hired alternative labour, including Ukrainian women who struggled with language barriers. In September 2024, the owner told Ms McCarthy that “Mary [Kenneally] is going in December”. 

This prompted a written appeal from Ms Kenneally’s three colleagues, who expressed deep distress over her “forced resignation”, and urged the owner to reconsider terminating the contract of a vital teammate.

The owner refused to discuss the matter further, and Ms Kenneally’s employment ceased on December 12, 2024, without her receiving any formal letters or paperwork.

During the WRC adjudication hearing, the company tried to rely on a document signed by Ms Kenneally in 2018, claiming it contained a mandatory retirement age.

Ms Kenneally testified she was never given a contract for her first decade of service, and was handed the 2018 document purely as a “box-ticking exercise for the Government”, which she was forced to sign on the spot without an opportunity to study it.

WRC adjudication officer Lefre de Burgh ruled the 2018 contract was void and bore no relation to reality. She noted Ms Kenneally, who is 67 and holds a mortgage, was in good health, intended to keep working, and had missed out on an alternative full-time job because of her employer’s deceptive silence.

She said the employer had capriciously changed her terms, singled her out regarding home-working, and ultimately dismissed her “putatively on the basis of age”.

She awarded the complainant €67,000 in compensation for unfair dismissal, as well as €3,313.76 for the unilateral reduction of hours, €3,000 for unpaid lunch breaks she was required to work through, and €3,340 for failure to provide her with accurate contractual terms.

Carr Sewing Machines Limited is currently in liquidation.