FULL RECOMMENDATION
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACTS, 1946 TO 1990 SECTION 26(1), INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT, 1990 PARTIES : ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS (REPRESENTED BY IRISH BUSINESS AND EMPLOYERS' CONFEDERATION) - AND - SERVICES INDUSTRIAL PROFESSIONAL TECHNICAL UNION DIVISION : Chairman: Mr McGee Employer Member: Mr Doherty Worker Member: Mr Nash |
1. Claim For Improvements In Pay Proposals & Setting Of An Implementation Date For Increases
BACKGROUND:
2. The dispute concerns the restructuring of secretarial grades and rates of pay in the College. In 2004 the College and the Union agreed to a job evaluation for secretarial grades to be carried out. This evaluation took place in the summer of 2006. An external provider trained a panel in its job evaluation methodology. The panel was made up of Union and Management representatives. The Union raised a number of issues concerning the report that resulted from this exercise including the Colleges final position on rates of pay and the terms and conditions attached to the re-grading.
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 October, 2007 in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on the 18th September, 2008.
UNION'S ARGUMENTS:
3. 1 The proposed job grading is not acceptable as it does not improve their pay prospects. It does not even keep secretarial grades at a decent level. They have been excluded from the Public Sector Benchmarking which was applied to other staff. Salary scales should be benchmarked with public sector benchmarking in order to ensure equity and fairness with other grades within the College.
2 Secretarial staff will be expected in future to work longer hours and implement major work place changes for an inferior pay of reward system.
3 The value of each incremental point on the secretarial pay grade should be no less than administrative grades. Going forward, both Public Sector Benchmarking and national wage agreements should apply. The implementation date should be December 2004 as per LCR 18482.
COMPANY'S ARGUMENTS:
4. 1 The college has made a comprehensive offer in respect of secretarial grades' terms and conditions with a proposed pay and grading structure going forward. This offer was made based on the recommendations of the agreed job evaluation process.
2 The pay rates offered to the Union were based on pay information supplied by the external consultant, who based this information on comparable job sizes in a wide variety of organisations where they carried out similar job evaluation exercises.
3 The job evaluation process only recommended one upgrade and accordingly only one employee is entitled to retrospection in accordance with the terms of LCR 18482. The College's position is that the terms of its pay proposals should be implemented from the date that the full terms of the College's proposals are accepted by the Union.
RECOMMENDATION:
Having carefully considered the submissions of the parties, the Court is of the view that the proposals as put by the employer should, in general, stand. Noting, however, that the progress onto the old Grade 4 scale remains, but only on the basis of a vacancy arising, there should be one further point added to the Role B scale on the basis of a long service increment. This point should apply after 3 years on the scale maximum of €39027 and should be set at €40467 (as per the table in the RCSI's Submission at Appendix F of its submission).
The Court so Recommends.
Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
Raymond McGee
10th December, 2008______________________
DNDeputy Chairman
NOTE
Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to David P Noonan, Court Secretary.