ADJUDICATION OFFICER Recommendation on dispute under Industrial Relations Act 1969
Investigation Recommendation Reference: ADJ-00034891
Parties:
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Anonymised Parties | Worker | Employer |
Representatives | SIPTU- Works Rights Centre | IBEC |
Dispute:
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-00045939 | 03/09/2021 |
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Janet Hughes
Date of Hearing: 27/01/2023
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 (as amended) following the referral of the dispute to me by the Director General, I inquired into the dispute and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any information relevant to the dispute. The parties to the dispute are described as employee and employer respectively.
Background:
This dispute is concerned with a claim that the individual employee should be paid as a social care worker when on night duty and not as a social care assistant which attracts a lower rate of pay. |
Summary of Employees Case:
The employee in this dispute is a qualified social worker. He was previous employed by the employer in that capacity on a fixed term contract. When that contract expired, there were no vacancies at the same grade and he successfully applied for a position on night duty which was advertised as a social care assistant. Following this appointment, he found that he was working alongside social care workers on night duty performing the same duties and even covering for them but on a lower rate of pay. If he covered for a social care worker on day duty, he received the SCW rate of pay. Over a period of three years, he has pursued his grievance regarding what he sees as the unfairness of the situation through the internal procedures and on to the WRC. His grievance was rejected in the internal proceedings. SIPTU pointed to the facts being largely agreed between the parties. However, they drew particular attention to a letter of March 6th, 2020, from an official in SIPTU representing the employee in this individual case, pointing out that there was no agreement with the Union on the change of grades on night duty. In spite of that correspondence management proceeded with the change and have denied the employee the rate of pay of a social care worker. |
Summary of Employer’s Case:
Again, it was said that the facts are largely agreed. This is an individual dispute and not a collective one and there can be no recommendation of a collective nature arising from this individual dispute. In the past the employer employed both social care assistants and social care workers on night duty. In consideration of organisation need a decision was taken to recruit only social care assistants to what were described to the hearing as walk around roles. The employee in this dispute is working alongside long serving social care workers whose grade/ rate of pay is red circled on a personal to holder basis. Other people recruited to the same roles on night duty since the change of policy described as a business decision have been recruited on the social care assistant rate of pay. The person replaced by the employee in this dispute himself replaced a person employed at nights in that house as a social care assistant. Management did recall informing the then union official of the intended changeover but were unable to provide any records of formal meetings on the matter. |
Conclusions:
As I remarked at the hearing and wish to emphasise, I can genuinely understand the frustration of the aggrieved employee in this case. He is a qualified social care worker and whereas at one time with the organisation he was paid a higher rate of pay for the same position and role, he now finds himself working alongside and covering the same work as others on night duty for a lesser rate of pay. A rate of pay and reorganisation which I am satisfied was not the subject of consultation or agreement with his trade union. Nonetheless as I also pointed out at the hearing, I cannot see past the collective nature of this dispute in that, while the employer did decide unilaterally it seems on a policy of employing lower paid staff on night duty in walk around care roles, that is their policy. And as a policy it affects all people employed after 2016 recruited onto night duty, including the aggrieved employee in this case. The existence of this policy was brought to the attention of SIPTU in 2020-at the latest-and while they wrote and said the change was not agreed, nothing at all was done thereafter to challenge the policy as a collective issue. Instead, and this is regrettable given the passage of time it has taken to advance through the various procedures, the employee was left to pursue this case as though it was purely an individual matter which it is not, in my view. That policy seems to well embedded in the employment almost seven years after it was first implemented.
In light of my conclusion, I do not have jurisdiction in this matter and cannot make a recommendation to resolve the dispute.
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Recommendation:
Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute.
As this is a matter of policy affecting the pay and conditions of a group or category of workers, an Adjudication Officer does not have jurisdiction to make a recommendation which would resolve this dispute as though it were a dispute affecting only one individual employee.
Dated: 9th February 2023
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Janet Hughes
Key Words:
Collective v Individual dispute-rate of pay. |