PWD197

The claim lodged under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 relates to an alleged non payment of travel time to the Claimant between 9 February 2018 and 3 July 2018. The claim was lodged on 31 May 2018 and, accordingly, the cognisable period is 6 months prior to that date rather than between the dates claimed. The amount claimed was €106. The claim was found by the Adjudication Officer to be based on a payment made as ‘an expense incurred in carrying out employment’ and, therefore, outside the terms of the Act. The Claimant appealed this decision.

Union arguments

1 From 1995 to 2017, the Claimant was paid travel time. This travel time was paid at €0.50 per extra mile beyond 18 miles radially from his home. This amount was not paid to him while working on a project in Blarney, giving rise to this claim.

2 The Labour Court did not include travel time in the Construction Industry Sectoral Employment Order of 2017 but it did observe that contractual arrangements for such payments were not affected by the recommendation and they continue to apply. The Claimant was entitled to be paid travel time prior to the Registered Employment Agreements for the sector being struck down by the Courts and should, therefore, be entitled to have the terms of such Agreements applied to him.

3 The travel time payments were properly payable to the Claimant within the meaning of the Act and non payment amounts to an unlawful deduction. The Adjudicator erred in regarding these payments as expenses as they were accrued for having to travel to various locations in the way that construction travel payments are made.

4 The Court was requested to support the Claimant’s case to award the money concerned and to recommend that the company commit to pay travel time going forward.

Company arguments

1 The Claimant was never in receipt of travel time payments, so there were no unlawful deductions.

2 The documentation submitted to the Court shows that the Claimant was paid receipted expenses to cover travel costs to one specific site and this arrangement applied only to that site. The Claimant ceased to make claims once work on that site finished.

Determination

It is not open to the Court to determine under the Payment of Wages Act whether or not a worker should have had the terms of the now defunct Construction Industry Registered Employment Agreements applied to him. Likewise, it is not open to the Court under that Act to make any recommendations about what the employer should do in the future.

The Act is very specific. It affords protections to workers against unlawful deductions of money ‘properly payable’ to them. Therefore, the only issue for the Court to determine in this case is whether a failure to pay the Claimant travel time in the 6 months prior to the lodgement of the claim on 31 May 2018 was an unlawful deduction of money that was ‘properly payable’. The Adjudication Officer found that the money paid to the Claimant that formed the basis on which this claim was founded amounted to a refund of expenses incurred in carrying out employment rather than remuneration that was properly payable to the Claimant. The documentation supplied to the Court showed clearly that this was the case. There is, therefore, no valid claim under the Act.

The decision of the Adjudication Officer is upheld.

Signed on behalf of the Labour Court



Tom Geraghty
CC______________________
19 February 2019Deputy Chairman



NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Determination should be addressed to Ceola Cronin, Court Secretary.