Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Print Manager

Government Department

Representatives

  self

 self

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00043496-001

09/04/2021

This dispute was submitted for hearing under the Industrial Relations Act in April 2021. At that time the worker had retired and in his outline statement he explained why it was almost a year after his retirement before he submitted the case to the WRC. Notification of the dispute was issued to the employer on 20.04.2021. In accordance with Section 36(1) of the 1990 Act, there was a twenty-one-day period provided for an objection to the hearing. None was received and on 02.02.2022 the parties were notified of the date of the hearing. The representative explained that there were issues around paperwork due to Covid leading to a delay in advising the WRC or the Respondent of the jurisdictional issues raised in their submission received by the undersigned on March 4th, 2022. In that submission the employer pointed to section 21(3) of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 which excludes civil servants as employees by or under the State from the ambit of the Industrial Relations Act. In a letter to the Complainant on March 9th, 2022 the terms of the legislation and the jurisdictional issue was notified to the Complainant to allow him to consider his position regarding the hearing.

At the hearing the matter was discussed and essentially the employer reiterated their position. The worker expressed his disappointment and questioned why he was not informed of the statutory position earlier when he had clearly written that he was a civil servant on the complaint form and the Department could have raised the issue of jurisdiction much earlier. He asked the employer to agree to mediation under the terms of circular 17/ 2017 issued by DEPR but this was refused. The employer position is that the employee did receive correspondence post his retirement but that as he is now retired over two years, the matter is closed.

The employee was asked if he wished to withdraw his dispute but when there was no clear statement to this effect, the parties were informed that I would issue a recommendation based on the jurisdictional issue and that I would not hear the case in full as I could not address the substance of the dispute.

Jurisdiction: The employee said that he was unaware of the terms of the legislation until he received correspondence from the undersigned and the Respondents submission the day before the hearing. He did not provide any argument to contradict the employers position although he was clearly disappointed on a number of levels.

Jurisdiction

Section 23(1) of the 1990 Industrial Relations Act refers. Under that section which was not amended section 1(a) applies where those comprehended by the Act does not include:

A person who is employed by or under the State,

It is accepted that the employee was unaware of the legislation cited by the employer. Furthermore, I agree that they could have raised the issue well before the submission to the WRC-even allowing the initial logistics issues related to Covid. It is also unfortunate that the significance of the status of the employee under the legislation was not observed at an ealier date by the WRC. Nonetheless the fact remains that an Adjudication Officer does not have jurisdiction to issue a recommendation in this dispute.