ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION/RECOMMENDATION

Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00006229

Parties:

	Complainant	Respondent
Anonymised Parties	Mr X	A State Body

Complaint(s):

Act	Complaint/Dispute Reference No.	Date of Receipt
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969	CA-00008532-001	01/12/2016

Date of Adjudication Hearing: 09/02/2017

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Michael Hayes

Procedure:

In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 and/or Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969 following the referral of the complaint(s)/dispute(s) to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint(s)/dispute(s) and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint(s)/dispute(s).

Background:

The complainant has been employed since 1984 his original employer was subsumed into the respondent in 2002. The dispute concerns the application of incremental credit as it relates to his promotion in 2015. The parties made written and oral submission to the hearing.

Summary of Complainant’s Case:

The complainant submits that he has been disadvantage arising from the introduction of the Government moratorium on recruitment and promotions as it relates to his placement on a promotional panel in 2007. A colleague who was placed 31^st (the complainant was placed 34^th) of a 50 person panel was promoted in December 2008. At that point he had a legitimate expectation that he would be promoted within the short term. He did not in fact receive his promotion until 2015 thereby loosing out on 7 years of incremental progress and the attendant benefits.

Summary of Respondent’s Case:

The respondent submits that it entered an agreement with SIPTU in 2007 concerning the structure and operation of the promotional panel on the basis that it would last for two years. The complainant was advised that there was no guarantee that it would result in his promotion in that the promotional grade pool was reducing. The moratorium on recruitment, pay and promotion took effect in March 2009 but the panel was reinstated when it was lifted. It was not possible for the respondent to retrospectively compensate the complainant in all the circumstances as to do so would be to reverse government policy and the general thrust of the Public Service Agreements covering the applicable period.

Recommendation:

Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts, 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute.]

It is clear that any attempt at amelioration of the complainant’s situation would serve to undermine government policy and the public service agreements, which reflected that policy in the period in question. Accordingly I am not in a position to make a recommendation favourable to the complainant as petitioned.

Dated: 21 July 2017

Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Michael Hayes