FULL RECOMMENDATION
PARTIES : LIMERICK CITY AND COUNTY COUNCIL DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1.Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No(s)ADJ-00030116, CA-00040201-001, CA-00040754-001, CA-00040760-001 This an appeal by the Worker from a Recommendation of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00030116, dated 12 July 2021) under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969. The Court heard the appeal in a virtual courtroom on 17 December 2021. The Worker is a foreman at a machinery yard operated on behalf of Limerick City and County Council (‘the Council’) in Newcastlewest, County Limerick. Between 2008 and March 2019, the Worker was in receipt of one hour’s overtime per day, Monday to Friday inclusive, for the responsibility of opening and locking up the machinery yard. Following the Council’s decision to discontinue this overtime arrangement in March 2019, the Worker unsuccessfully availed himself of all stages of the Council’s grievance procedure. Thereafter, he initiated a separate process through his Trade Union with the Human Resources department. That process seems to have concluded with an email dated 10 February 2020 from Mr Dave Hennessy, Head of Human Resources, to the Worker’s Trade Union official in which Mr Hennessy made reference to an Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation (ADJ-00086550, dated 31 July 2018) in a claim brought by the Worker under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 wherein the Adjudication Officer had recommended payment of €10,000.00 gross and net to the Worker “providing it resolves all and every issue to do with the situation the Claimant found himself in during this time and the duties he performed in many aspects of other roles …”. The Council had accepted this Recommendation and had paid the Worker the aforementioned gross amount in compensation. The Union submits that Recommendation ADJ-00086550 was not related in any way to the elimination of the Worker’s ‘consistent, regular and rostered overtime’. It further submits that if this had been the case, the Council would have discontinued the overtime immediately after the Recommendation issued on 31 July 2018 rather than waiting until the following March to do so. The Worker is seeking the re-instatement of his overtime arrangement and retrospective payment to 19 March 2019. The Council submits that, having reviewed the overtime practice the subject of the within dispute and having considered the basis for it, determined that it would be more efficient to provide all staff using the machinery yard with an individual key. This eliminated the need to have the Worker attend earlier and longer to open the yard and lock up in the evenings. The Council further submits that it cannot identify any basis on which it would be reasonable for it to accede to the Worker’s request to reverse the new working arrangements and re-instate this unnecessary overtime to him. Finally, the Council exhibited a breakdown of the Worker’s total overtime earnings for 2019, 2020 and the first two months of 2021. The breakdown demonstrates that his overtime earnings have been increasing year on year in the period under review, notwithstanding the elimination of the overtime payment which is the subject of the within dispute. Decision The Court, having fully considered the submissions before it, finds that the Worker’s claim is not well-founded. The Council’s decision to discontinue an arrangement whereby the Worker was paid for ten hours per week at an overtime rate for opening and locking up a yard and to provide all workers using the site with an individual key instead is perfectly rational and prudent in the context of the Council’s obligation to achieve efficiencies. The Court so decides.
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