Employee

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A General Operative

A Medical Products Manufacturer

Representatives

SIPTU

Represented by HR Management

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

IR - SC - 00001160

10/03/2023

The employee is a general operative and he joined the company on March 31st 2020.  He left on September 13th 2022 to start a new job.  He gave one week’s notice of his intention to leave.

For 16 months prior to his departure, the company and SIPTU were in negotiations on a pay increase.  A document submitted by SIPTU records the conclusions reached at the conciliation service of the WRC at the end of August 2022.  The outcome was a proposal that SIPTU members should receive an increase of 2.5% back-dated to March 1st 2021 and 3% back-dated to March 1st 2022.  A ballot of SITPU members on September 12th resulted in the proposals being accepted.  The increases were applied to wages from September 22nd 2022 and the retrospection was paid out on October 13th.

The employee did not receive the amount that he would have been paid in retrospection if he had been an employee of the company on October 13th 2022.  At the hearing, he said that he estimates that the amount he would have received if the company had agreed to pay him is €3,100.  He claims that, as he was in employment for the entire duration of the pay talks, and as he voted to accept the deal on September 12th 2022, it is unfair not to pay him the retrospective amount.

The company’s position is that pay increases of any kind, and payments such as bonuses are paid to employees who are actively in employment on the day that the increases are paid.  The employee concerned with this dispute left on September 13th.  Although the ballot concluded on September 12th, it took some time to do the calculations of the amounts due to each employee and for payroll to process the back-pay.  The retrospective lump sums were paid on October 13th.

At the hearing, the HR business partner explained the timing of pay increase and the retrospective payments.  The HR manager said that a claim could emerge from others who resigned or retired before the conclusion of the ballot on September 12th 2022 and that this would create a significant industrial relations problem for the company.  The employer’s position is that anyone who is not in the company on the date that an increase is paid is not entitled to the increase or to back-pay.

I have considered the position of both sides in this dispute and I am mindful of the risk to the company of any concession on the policy to exclude employees who have left from an entitlement to back pay.  I note that the pay increase commenced from September 22nd and that it took a further three weeks to process the back-pay.

In the circumstances where it was agreed between the union and the company that the rate of pay for work done from March 1st 2021 is higher than the rate that was paid, and that employees are entitled to back-pay, then, in the interest of fairness, this employee should not be excluded from that entitlement.  He was an employee from the beginning until the end of the pay negotiations in August 2022, up to the date of the ballot on September 12th.  His employment ended on September 13th and his final week’s wages was paid to him on Friday, September 16th.  I recommend that the company pay the amount of back pay that this employee would have received if he had been employed on October 13th 2022.

Pay increase, back-pay