LCR22648

1.Appeal Of Adjudication Officer Decision No(S) ADJ-00020772 CA-00027345-001.

BACKGROUND:

2.UNION ARGUMENTS:

1: The worker has been doing the duties of a Grade 8 Management Accountant since return from
career break, however he is currently a Grade 7.

2: There is a collective agreement in place that all Management Accountants are at Grade 8.
This agreement was made while the Worker was on a career break but he is covered by its terms.

EMPLOYER ARGUMENTS:

1: The Worker is not undertaking the duties of a Management Accountant and is graded correctly.

2: There is an old collective agreement but it does not appear to have been applied in the relevant
region.

3: The Worker was a Grade 7 when he took a career break. The Employer met its obligations to him
when he returned to a Grade 7 post. The Worker’s previous post had been abolished while he was
on a career break.

4: There appear to be other Management accountants at Grade 7.

DECISION:

In this case the questions for the Court were to establish if there was a collective agreement and, if so, did this agreement cover the Worker?

The Employer conceded that there was a collective agreement in place that determined a pay scale for Management Accountants at Grade VIII. However, it was argued that the Worker’s post was abolished while he was on a career break, that he had left on that career break while he was Grade VII and that, in accepting him back at this level, the Employer had fulfilled its obligations to him.

The Union argued that the function had been graded at Grade VIII, that the Worker had returned to his original function which, while he was on a career break, had been graded at Grade VIII and that the Employer was not entitled to single out individuals to be excluded from the terms of a collective agreement.

There is disagreement between the parties as to whether or not the Worker is carrying out the full range of Management Accountant duties.

The Court is satisfied that the collective agreement on which the Union seeks to rely was intended to grade Management Accountant duties at Grade VIII, that the Worker was on such duties when he took a career break and was, therefore, covered by the terms of that agreement. The fact that the particular region of the HSE may or may not have applied the agreement does not mean that the Court should recommend that it may be ignored.

Therefore, the Court accepts that the appropriate grading of the Worker, in accordance with the collective agreement, is that of a Grade VIII and recommends that he should be graded at this level.

The Court notes that the Worker returned from a career break in 2014 and could have pursued this matter to a conclusion at any time since then but has waited until now to do so. For this reason, the Court believes that it would be inappropriate to award any retrospective payment and recommends that the Worker be graded at Grade VIII from the date of this Recommendation. However, it follows logically from the Court’s acceptance that the appropriate grading is at Grade VIII that the Worker’s service since his return from career break should be recognised in some way and the Court recommends that he should be placed, with immediate effect, on the top point of the Grade VIII scale.

For the sake of clarity, the Court wishes to emphasise that the Worker is now liable to perform the full range of duties expected of a Management Accountant at Grade VIII.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Tom Geraghty
27 September 2022	______________________
IK	Deputy Chairman