FULL RECOMMENDATION
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACTS, 1946 TO 1990 SECTION 26(1), INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT, 1990 PARTIES : DUBLIN BUS - AND - NBRU SERVICES INDUSTRIAL PROFESSIONAL TECHNICAL UNION DIVISION : Chairman: Mr Haugh Employer Member: Mr Murphy Worker Member: Ms O'Donnell |
1. Self Certifying Sick Days
BACKGROUND:
2. This dispute concerns a claim for Self-Certifying Sick Days. This 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 3rd November, 2015, in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on the 9th December, 2015.
UNION'S ARGUMENTS:
3 1 The Company are wrong to apply the terms of the Self-Certified Sick Leave agreement in circumstances where a 1 day absence, due to illness, is Certified by a GP.
2 Single days certified absence were not considered part of the Self-Certification Illness Agreement between the year 1999 and 2013.
COMPANY'S ARGUMENTS:
4 1. Since the original arrangements for availing of self-certified illness were introduced in Dublin Bus any single day's absence whether covered by Medical Certificate or self-certification was reckoned as one of the days permitted under the self-certified scheme. The purpose of having this clause was to ensure there was no abuse of the scheme.
2 The purpose of having self-certified illness arrangements for a single day's illness is to enable staff who are unable to attend work through illness to avail of one day absence uncertified by a Doctor.
RECOMMENDATION:
A scheme which provides for the self-certification of a specified maximum number of sick days has been in place in the Respondent company and operated by agreement with the Unions since 1988. Certain aspects of the scheme have been amended in the intervening period, in some cases on foot of a Recommendation from this Court. However, it has been the case since 1988 that any single certified sick day has been reckoned as one of the self-certified days provided for by the aforementioned scheme.
The Unions’ have requested the Court to recommend that this feature of the scheme be amended so as to exclude single certified sick days for the purposes of reckoning the total number of self-certified sick days a worker has availed of in a relevant period.
No argument was made to the Court in the course of the hearing to justify the Court making such a recommendation. Therefore, the claim to change the scheme as proposed by the Unions fails.
The Court so recommends
Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
Alan Haugh
CO'R______________________
23rd December 2015Deputy Chairman
NOTE
Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to Clodagh O'Reilly, Court Secretary.