LCR22268

1.Appeal Of Adjudication Officer Recommendation No. ADJ-00023857

BACKGROUND:

2.This matter was referred to an Adjudication Officer for investigation and Recommendation.
On the 16 April 2020, the Adjudication Officer issued the following Recommendation: -

“The complaint is not well founded.”

The Worker appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour

Court on the 13thMay 2020 in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

A Labour Court hearing took place on the 14^thSeptember 2020.


UNION'S ARGUMENTS:

The Worker’s present roles and responsibilities far surpass that of those appropriate to the job description of a Housing Welfare Officer which is his current substantive pay grade.

The Worker attends various committees where he is at a far lesser grade than his peers, despite him holding equal status and being the only representative from Westmeath County Council.

The Worker would have roles and responsibilities, equal to or greater, than colleagues in sister local authorities nationwide who are already remunerated at senior social worker /senior housing welfare officer level.

COMPANY'S ARGUMENTS:

The Council’s workforce plan, which was approved by the Department, provides for one post of Social Worker only and there is no Senior post provided for.

The post of Senior Social Worker includes a significant management responsibility which does not apply in the case of the post of Social Worker in the Council.

This regrading claim is no different from the generality of other regrading claims and is regulated by legal, public policy and collective agreement constraints.

DECISION:

The Court has given careful consideration to the written and oral submissions of the parties.

It is common case that there is no mechanism in place to allow for evaluation of the job of a person of the Claimant’s grade in the local authority sector where an issue arises. Some engagement appears to have taken place nationally between the parties in relation to the potential to introduce such a mechanism for application to staff at grades 4 to 7 in the sector. The Claimant is not in a position which is graded between 4 and 7 and, as such, no job evaluation scheme, should it be concluded, covering these grades would have any effect on the Claimant or the within claim.

No submission has been put before the Court addressing the desirability of national engagement to consider the value of a job evaluation scheme for staff at the grade occupied by the Claimant. Neither has any submission been made setting out any historical practice of ‘ad hoc’ job evaluation taking place where a staff member at the Claimant’s grade contends that the work they carry out is at a higher level than should properly be expected from a person of his grade.

It would be inappropriate for the Court to comment on the potential introduction of a job evaluation scheme for staff of the Claimant’s grade on the basis of the claim before it in the absence of any apparent discussion of this matter nationally. The Court also considers that it would be inappropriate to comment of the efficacy of ‘ad hoc’ job evaluation for staff of the Claimant’s grade wherever a claim arises.

The Court notes the position of the employer whereby it has asserted that any regrading of the role carried out by the Claimant would result in an open competition to fill that regraded post. The Court also notes that the Trade Union rejects that assertion.

The Court does not recommend concession of the claim.

In all of the circumstances, the Court recommends that the parties engage locally to consider the work content of the Claimant’s role versus what would normally be expected of a person of the Claimant’s grade. It is the Court’s view that a joint objective analysis of the work content of the role should assist in achieving a consensus position matching the Claimant’s job content to his grade.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
NJ	______________________
15 September 2020	Chairman