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-00013444-001

30/08/2017

The complainant is one of two employees engaged in driving duties and is claiming payment of a driving allowance.

The complainant has been employed as a driver by the hospital since June 2005.

In the course of wider discussions with the respondent in 2016 his union claimed payment of a driver’s allowance on a ‘red circled’ basis. The allowance is worth €23 per fortnight.

The union counters the respondent case made in the course of negotiations that the higher rate of pay enjoyed by the complainant is compensation for the driving duties by saying that his original role in the hospital was not clearly defined as he was not given a written job description or contract of employment.

It also says that the complainant’s co-workers employed in the same department employed as drivers are in receipt of the driver’s allowance.

The union also disputes the applicability of the Government Circular Letter on which the respondent relies to oppose the payment. In its submission, the reference to Driving Allowances is under the heading of ‘Classes of allowances to be approved for new beneficiaries etc’, while there is a separate section on allowances ‘to be abolished’.

He is seeking payment back dated to the commencement of his employment in his current department which was 2008.

The respondent says that the complainant was employed as a driver and put on the correct scale for that role (a ‘Band 3’ scale), which is in a range €26,834 to €33,906.

The salary scale for a porter driver and for a driver whose duties do not involve patient transportation (or is they do so only within the hospital grounds) is lower at €26,001 to €33,830.

The respondent says that the Band 3 scale includes the driver’s allowance.

The respondent accepts that there is an anomaly in that some of the complainant’s co-workers are still in receipt of the allowance. When this emerged, it was agreed to continue to make the payments on a ‘red circled’ basis. The allowance will cease on their retirement.

The claim is a cost-increasing claim and is precluded by the Public Service pay agreement.

This case presents a dilemma, although not an unusual one for HR practitioners.

It seems clear that what the respondent described as ‘an anomaly’ arose, in the shape of a group of its employees being paid an allowance to which they were, strictly speaking not entitled.

A practical solution was found by continuing the payment on a personal basis; the so-called ‘red circling’.

This was a practical and equitable industrial relations compromise, but it results in a further anomaly in respect of the current complainant (and a colleague).

The complainant is in the position where he never enjoyed the allowance in the first place.

On the other hand, the red circle arrangement has created a further anomaly in that two groups of the respondent’s employees are paid at different rates for the same work.

The ‘red circle’ arrangement is the de facto rate for the job for this group of driver employees.

I therefore propose to adopt the logic and good sense demonstrated by the parties when dealing with the earlier anomaly and recommend their previous solution and on the same terms; viz that the complainant be paid the allowance on a personal basis only.

I recommend that the complainant be paid the driver’s allowance with effect from January 1st 2017 on a personal basis to him.

Payment of allowance