FULL RECOMMENDATION
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACTS, 1946 TO 1990 SECTION 26(1), INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT, 1990 PARTIES : GLANBIA PLC (SHARED SERVICES) - AND - UNITE DIVISION : Chairman: Mr McGee Employer Member: Mr Grier Worker Member: Mr O'Neill |
1. Selection for redundancy.
BACKGROUND:
2. Glanbia is an international dairy, consumer foods and nutritional products manufacturing Company. The Company announced in November 2007 that it was reducing the number of clerical staff by five at its Shared Service Centre (SSC) in Dungarvan, the Union accepted the requirement to reduce numbers but did not agree that it should be on 'last-in-first-out' (LIFO) basis.
The dispute could not be resolved at local level and was the subject of a Conciliation Conference under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission. As agreement was not reached, the dispute was referred to the Labour Court on the 8th August, 2008, in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on the 12th November, 2008.
UNION'S ARGUMENTS:
3. 1. The Company proposal is in contravention of the Company/Union Agreement on redundancy, that is voluntary redundancy based on seniority. The Agreement has served all parties well and was upheld by the LRC in 2002.
2. The Company has unfairly created a new type of temporary worker in order to circumvent the Agreement, forced redundancy was never part of this Agreement and should be ended.
COMPANY'S ARGUMENTS:
4. 1. The offer of a voluntary redundancy package to permanent staff would adversely effect future employment as there will always be a need for flexibility to scale up or down staff numbers in line with available work.
2. Staff with long experience would be lost to the Company and the expensive cost of the redundancy package would mitigate against future work coming to SSC. In fact it could herald the introduction of outsourcing to a lower cost location overseas.
RECOMMENDATION:
The Court has carefully considered the submissions made to it by the parties and recommends as follows:-
(a) All existing temporary employees should be made permanent
(b) In this particular and unique situation and without creating a precedent for either side, two short service volunteers and two long service volunteers should be selected for redundancy.
(c) The parties should immediately reengage on negotiating a replacement agreement on redundancy for the shared services division which will meet the Company's business needs while protecting the maximum number of jobs.
Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
Raymond McGee
5th December, 2008______________________
JFDeputy Chairman
NOTE
Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to John Foley, Court Secretary.