Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A firefighter

A local authority

Representatives

Ger Malone SIPTU

Keith Irvine Local Government Management Agency (LGMA)

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Industrial Relations Act 1969

CA-00044548-002

10/06/2021

The complainant contends that payment for days taken for bereavement have been calculated incorrectly by the respondent.

The complainant is a Firefighter who works varying hours and is in receipt of various allowances, such as Sunday premium.  When he had to avail of bereavement leave, his pay was calculated on 39 hours, whereas he worked an average of 42 hours for the previous 13 weeks.  It is contended that the respondent failed to correctly calculate the pay due to the complainant in the relevant period.

It is clear from the WRC Complaint From that the current case concerns not just the claimant but other employees of the Local Authority Sector, in relation to the current calculation of Bereavement/ Compassionate Leave which is currently calculated on basic pay only. The Union cannot claim they are only concerned with the claimant and his complaint when clearly if the current complaint were to succeed it would be used as a precedent for further complaints.  The respondent would submit that the Adjudicator is precluded from hearing this complaint under S.13(2) of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 which states:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, where a trade dispute (other than a dispute connected with rates of pay of, hours or times of work of, or annual holidays of, a body of workers) exists or is apprehended and involves workers within the meaning of Part VI of the Principal Act, a party to the dispute may refer it to a rights commissioner”.

The respondent would also raise a preliminary issue in relation to the complaint being submitted to the Workplace Relations Commission for Adjudication. It is a matter of fact that the respondent has in place a Grievance Procedure which is an agreed internal procedure in relation to dealing with grievances and issues in employment.

In this regard the respondent would refer to ADJ00018981 (Appendix 7) where the Adjudicator asserted “It is well established by the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court that they do not intervene in a dispute under Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 until all internal grievance procedures have been fully exhausted. This has clearly not happened in the circumstances of the present dispute…Accordingly, I recommend that the parties exhaust all internal dispute resolution mechanisms for addressing these grievances before the worker considers the further referral of this matter to the Workplace Relations Commission for adjudication under Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969.”

The respondent would in the first instance assert that the current complaint is a collective complaint in relation to a body of workers, however, if the complaint submitted is regarded by the Adjudicator to be an individual complaint it should utilise the agreed local grievance procedure prior to submission of the complaint to the WRC, which has not happened.

The claim in this instant case has wider applicability across a body of workers in the particular employment and further in the public sector.

In that case I find that I am precluded from hearing this claim under S.13(2) of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 which states:

“Subject to the provisions of this section, where a trade dispute (other than a dispute connected with rates of pay of, hours or times of work of, or annual holidays of, a body of workers) exists or is apprehended and involves workers within the meaning of Part VI of the Principal Act, a party to the dispute may refer it to a rights commissioner”.

Industrial Relations Act, dispute connected to a body of workers, no recommendation.