Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Worker

A University

Representatives

Marie O Connor of SIPTU

Aisling McDevitt of IBEC

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 - 00001590

01/08/2023

The Worker is employed as a technical assistant grade 2. He joined the Employer in 2007 and it is common case that the Worker performs duties outside of that role description.

The Worker has engaged extensively with the Employer to seek recognition for this and to be regraded to “technician”.

He brought a grievance, stage 1 of which was heard in October 2022. This was rejected on the basis that the Employer had no job evaluation scheme in place.

The Worker appealed to stage 2 of the grievance process and was successful. The person determining the appeal noted that a circular/ collective agreement had made the technician role the new entry level role for the Employer’s technical career path. However, the University did not act on this outcome as there was no job evaluation scheme in place.

This was then appealed to stage 3 in May 2023. The Head of College considered the case and rejected the claim. Their outcome noted that the Worker was not encompassed by that circular in that it did not provide a clear progression path from his grade to the technician grade and that there was no job evaluation scheme in place.

The Worker appealed the matter to the WRC under Section 13 of Industrial Relations Act 1969.

A hearing was held to consider his case. Much of this hearing centred around this issue of whether an individual regrading, in a public sector environment and in the absence of an agreed regrading scheme, should be subject to a recommendation.

As I was aware there were conflicting views on this issue, issued by both the WRC and Labour Court I requested supplemental submissions from both IBEC and SIPTU on the issue.  

SIPTU referred to the following three cases as examples where the Labour Court has issued recommendations that an individual regrading exercise be undertaken without the existence of a wider regrading scheme.

St Catherine’s College and Irish Federation of University Teachers LCR18708 wherein a dispute on behalf of the President of the College in relation to the appropriate level of remuneration arose. The Union stated same should be in line with the remuneration of the Principal of the Church of Ireland College of Education. The Court recommended that a job evaluation exercise be undertaken in relation to both posts for the period covered by the claim and should be undertaken within three months of the date of its recommendation.

Institute of Technology (Tralee) and Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union LCR19019 where the Union sought to have two posts upgraded. The Union claimed the work being done by both claimants merited the upgrading as their duties had increased significantly in the last number of years. The Court recommended that the parties should appoint a suitable person or body to undertake a job evaluation of the two posts.

Trinity College Dublin and A Worker AD1474 wherein the workers claims that the duties she performed in the course of her work were beyond her grade and level of remuneration. The Court upheld the Rights Commissioner’s recommendation that an independent evaluation should be carried out to align the worker to the appropriate grade.

The Employer responded to the above cases submitting that they predate recent changes to the public sector industrial relations environment on the issue of regrading.

Two of the three recommendations cited pre-date the public service stability agreements under which significant changes were made to job evaluation schemes throughout the public service.

All three recommendations pre-date a 2015 LRC Chairman’s note which related to a collective agreement in the higher education sector. This specifically outlined that regrading of the Worker’s role was a collective matter and could not occur without the explicit approval of the Department of Education.

In conducting my investigation, I have taken into account all relevant submissions presented to me by the parties.

While initially this investigation concerned the wider issue of whether job revaluation exercises could or should be recommended by the WRC the issue was narrowed significantly by the parties in subsequent submissions.

The Employer has furnished a note of an agreement between higher education employers and unions which clearly puts the issue of any regrading scheme of the clerical, administrative and support grades in the realm of collective agreement. While this note appears to open the door to local collective agreement on the subject this can only occur subject to Department of Education approval.

The Union has also confirmed that such talks are now being sought at a national level directly with the Department.

In the circumstances I believe it is clear that, in the context of the Worker’s sector and grade, the issue of regrading is clearly a collective matter and not an individual one. Any recommendation in the Worker’s favour would undermine existing collective agreements which cover his employer and grade. I must be guided by the principals which underpin these Acts, that is to make further and better provision for promoting harmonious relations between workers and employer. I believe such a course of action would go against that goal.

Separately I note that the Employer’s grievance process does not appear to allow them to simply ignore their own outcomes. I accept that at the conclusion of stage 2 the Employer was put in a difficult position in that the person they had put in place to hear the appeal issued a recommendation they could not follow. However, their response was simply to issue a two-line email to the Union noting the decision but stating there was no job evaluation scheme in place.

The Employer did not seek to explain the situation in any detail, outline any suggestions in how they could liaise with the Union and the Department of Education to explore options to resolve matters or even recognise the Worker’s ongoing contribution to the University was above his paygrade.

This was an inappropriate and unnecessarily adversarial approach to an issue the parties are actually aligned on, that the Worker is underpaid for the work he carries out.