LCR23089

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00046408 (CA-00057020-002 IR-SC-00001438)

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour Court on 9 July 2024 in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

On 26 June 2024 the Adjudication Officer issued the following Recommendation.

“Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute. In all the circumstances of this dispute I conclude the respondent acted in accordance with the agreed terms of the transfer. Therefore, I cannot recommend the reinstatement of an income continuance scheme which was not part of the transfer, nor can I recommend that the worker receive compensation.”

A Labour Court hearing took place on 12 December 2024.

DECISION:

Background to the Appeal

This is an appeal by the Worker from a Recommendation of an Adjudication Officer (IR-SC- 00001438, dated 26 June 2024) under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969. Notice of Appeal was received in the Court on 15 July 2024. The Court heard the appeal in Dublin on 12 December 2024.

Factual Background

The Worker has been employed by Bidvest Noonan (ROI) Limited (‘the Company’) since 18 February 2020 following a transfer of undertakings on that date from her previous employer (‘the transferor’).

The Worker commenced a period of long-term sick leave in December 2021 and sought in June 2022 to avail herself of an income protection scheme which had been available to her during her employment with the transferor and which she believed should have continued to be available to her following the transfer by operation of the European Communities (Protection of Employees on Transfer of Undertakings) Regulations 2003. However, she was informed that the Company had no such scheme in place and that it had committed - as part of a collective agreement entered into with SIPTU in the context of the transfer of undertakings in 2020 -to “investigate the possibility of providing an income continuance policy to staff”. Having done so, the Company decided that the cost of providing such a scheme was prohibitively expensive.

Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969

Section 13(2) provides:

“(2) 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 [an Adjudication Officer].”

The effect of the subsection is to limit the jurisdiction of an Adjudication Officer under section 13 to the investigation of disputes involving individual workers. An Adjudication Officer, therefore, may not make a recommendation under section 13 in relation to a trade dispute that involves a body of workers i.e. one that has collective implications.

Discussion and Decision

The provision or non-provision of an income continuance scheme pursuant to a collective agreement is an issue that has implications for a body of workers and is therefore collective in nature. It is not, for that reason, properly before the Court by way of an appeal under section 13.

The Recommendation of the Adjudication Officer is, therefore, set aside.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
AR	______________________
16th December 2024	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Aidan Ralph, Court Secretary.