A Brazilian language student who took a job as a live-in au pair but was fired after 18 weeks, after protesting about the amount of work she was asked to do, has been awarded more than €10,000 by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC). Allessandra Vaz Feliciano arrived in Ireland in early 2024 and subsequently got some part-time cleaning work with a married couple, Abdelaziz Ahmed and Zainab Ali, who were then living in Lucan.Having heard their childminder had left, she spoke to the family and agreed to take over that role from the start of December.The intention was that she would help get their children out to school between 7am and 8am each weekday morning, then work from 3.30pm each afternoon until 8pm. She would also work from 10am to 6pm on Saturdays. The weekly total was supposed to be 35½ hours and she was to live in the house while being paid €1,600 per month.On her first day, she told a WRC hearing, however, she was asked to start early and then finished two hours late. She was then routinely required to work additional hours and her duties quickly expanded.In her account of the following few months, which adjudication officer Pat Brady described as “harrowing”, she said she was also persistently asked to work Sundays and took to sleeping on the couch of a friend on Saturday evenings in an effort to avoid it.Soon after starting, she was approached by Ahmed and asked to sign a contract for 70 hours but for the same money, which she refused to do.During her time with the family, they moved from Lucan to Raheny and, she said, she was instructed to do the bulk of packing of possessions for the transfer, which again, she said, she declined to do. She eventually agreed after others were recruited to help her.After the move to what was a smaller house, however, relations between the couple and the woman deteriorated and at the start of April she was told to take a one-week “vacation” from the residence.On the day of that week, she received a text dismissing her. She went back to the house to collect her belongings, and wages and €1,200 were transferred to her account, but a further €536, which was promised, never materialised, and she had also expected to be paid in lieu of notice. The couple failed to attend the hearing.Brady concluded she met the criteria required to be considered an employee; he said he had no reason not to proceed on the basis of her uncontested evidence.He awarded her €5,655.67 under the National Minimum Wages Act, €641.60 to cover holiday pay under the Organisation of Working Times Act, €1,917 under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act and €2,500 to help cover her legal expenses.“The days when people undertaking this type of work were seen as ‘fair game’ for mistreatment as they were in some legal limbo are long gone,” he said in his decision.