Row between rival firms over control of Dublin security contract saw gardaí called, WRC told

A row between two rival firms over control of the security contract at a Dublin City Centre convenience store last year escalated to the point that gardaí were called to the scene, a tribunal has heard.

The details were disclosed at a hearing into multiple employment rights claims against one of the firms, BGS Security Ltd (BGSS), which has been accused of “ghosting” a worker who was left on the brink of being made homeless due to pay arrears.

BGSS was accused at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) of engaging in the “systematic and deliberate” exploitation of migrant workers from Africa and Asia by running a business “on a model of free labour”.

The WRC heard that the management of the firm had “disappeared” and there was doubt about whether some of the more than 50 workers would be in a position to claim pay arrears from the Employers’ Insolvency Fund because the liquidator had been unable to take possession of vital company records.

The complainant, Tesleem Abdulkareem, worked for BGSS as a static retail guard at the Centra on North King Street, Dublin 2, until his employment ended “without warning” when he was sent home on the day of the row, his trade union has said.

BGSS, which had its security licence revoked last year and is now in liquidation, was likened to a “modern slavery” operation by trade union Siptu in an allied case last month.

Abdulkareem’s union representative, Nicola Coleman said her client was at work when several men approached him with “a letter from Musgrave Retail Stores” stating that another firm had been appointed to provide security at his workplace.

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“These men then told Tesleem to leave the shop. Tesleem told them he needed to speak to his boss first,” Coleman said.

Abdulkareem’s case was that having phoned his supervisor, the supervisor arrived with another man, whom his supervisor introduced as his father and “the owner of BGSS”.

“An argument then ensued between them and the men from the other security firm. It escalated to the point that the gardaí were called. [The supervisor] then told Tesleem to go home,” Coleman said in a submission.

“He assured him he would call him later. He’s never heard anything from him since,” Coleman said.

In addition to complaints of non-payment of wages, notice pay and leave entitlements, Abdulkareem’s trade union, SIPTU, argues their client was subject to racial discrimination in breach of the Employment Equality Act 1999, and breaches of the minimum employment terms for the security sector in breach of the Industrial Relations Act 1949.

Coleman said her client was living in private rented accommodation as the “main breadwinner” for his wife and three young children at the time – and was faced with a “serious risk of defaulting on his rent”.

BGSS “ghosted” Abdulkareem, a worker it had “left bereft of salary and at risk of homelessness”, Ms Coleman told the hearing on Monday.

Having been left out of work with pay arrears, Coleman said, her client wrote in early March to the Private Security Authority (PSA), telling it that BGSS was “taking advantage of migrant security workers” by refusing to pay their salaries. The PSA suggested he go to the WRC, the tribunal was told.

Abdulkareem also wrote to the Department of Justice last spring asking for a meeting about BGSS’s activities and claiming the company was “defrauding” workers, Coleman said. “He still hasn’t received a reply from the Department of Justice,” she added.

Although Abdulkareem was not an applicant for international protection, there were “quite a number of asylum seekers” among those recruited by BGSS, Coleman said.

She pointed to a previous WRC adjudication decision against BGSS. It recorded that residents of a direct provision centre were approached and “advised to do training to obtain a licence to work as a security guard” and were offered work with BGSS after attending the course.

Coleman said Abdulkareem was “easier to exploit” because of his race. BGSS, she said, benefited from the “unpaid labour of others”.

“It could not have, would not have, and did not happen to an Irish person,” Coleman said.

When adjudicator Penelope McGrath asked how certain she could be on that point, Coleman submitted that none of the ex-employees who had pursued cases had “ever met an Irish person” in the same position.

“The respondent can present one if they want,” she added.

There seemed to be four employees in supervisory or administrative roles at BGSS the workers were able to name, Coleman said. “It is probable these workers were paid when the complainants were not,” she submitted.

Steven Gyurko, a representative of BGSS’s High Court-appointed liquidator Thomas Musiol of Musiol Advisory, told adjudication officer Penelope McGrath: “There’s nothing to liquidate.”

“Everyone’s disappeared on you?” McGrath said.

“Yes, they disappeared. I visited the premises and spoke to the receptionist of a neighbouring company … they abandoned the building about a year before the date of liquidation,” Gyurko said.

He said his firm had investigated “tips” about other addresses which might be linked to the business. “I visited those as well, but the current occupants didn’t know anything about BGSS, so we ran out of options in the end,” Mr Gyurko said.

“We were pursuing the director, Hugh Downes. What we see is that he sold his family house in Blanchardstown last August, and according to the folio records, he hasn’t purchased a new one in Ireland, so we’re not sure if he’s still in the country,” Gyurko said.

The liquidator had been unable to identify three people named by workers as having management roles as they were “not on the payroll of the company”.

“There was a pattern that immigrant workers were targeted. We are aware of over 50 similar cases where the company either paid a few weeks or months and ghosted the employee afterwards, or did not pay at all for several weeks of work,” Gyurko said.

Abdulkareem said he had since found work in a nursing home and was happy in his employment there.

“They’re not a flight risk, your employer?” McGrath asked him. Abdulkareem said they weren’t.

“I’m sorry you’ve had an experience like this,” the adjudicator said. “I don’t know if [your complaint] will yield fruit for you, but I think you’re doing the right thing for people coming behind you, in terms of unscrupulous employers treating people unfairly,” she said.

“Hopefully, somewhere down the road, somebody might be held to account for this sorry tale,” McGrath said as she closed the hearing.