LCR22978

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: S26(1) (CAM-101526-24)

BACKGROUND:

This dispute could not be resolved at local level and was the subject of Conciliation Conferences under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission. As agreement was not reached, the dispute was referred to the Labour Court on 8 May 2024 in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on 27 May 2024.

RECOMMENDATION:

This matter comes before the court as a trade dispute in relation to the terms to be applied on the occurrence of up to 20 redundancies in the Company plant at Lough Egish. The employer submitted that, in fact, up to 84 redundancies will be occurring at about this time across a range of sites.

The background to this trade dispute includes the fact that, in 2006, redundancy terms were agreed by the parties in respect of redundancies occurring at that time. No element of that agreement appeared to be an agreement that the terms agreed in 2006 would be applied to any future redundancies.

The trade union submitted that these 2006 terms should be applied to the current redundancies at Lough Egish.

Similarly, redundancies occurred in 2019 at the company’s Lacpatrick site, and terms were agreed between the parties at that time which differed from the terms which had applied in 2006. No element of that agreement appeared to be an agreement that the terms agreed in 2006 would be applied to any future redundancies.

The employer submitted that these 2019 terms should be applied to the current redundancies at Lough Egish.

In the course of the hearing, both parties also set out to the Court a range of terms which had been agreed in other companies in the sector and various submissions were made to the Court highlighting elements of those terms which were considered favourable by one side or the other.

Having regard to all of the circumstances and all of the oral and written submissions made by the parties, the Court recommends that the following terms should apply to the redundancies occurring at this time in the Lough Egish site:

• Statutory redundancy entitlement plus 3.25 weeks average pay per year of service or 4.25 weeks basic pay per year of service whichever is the greater.

[Average weekly pay to be determined by reference to the P60 earnings in 2023 unless a worker has reduced earnings in that year due to sick absence, maternity or parental leave etc in which case the most recent full year’s P60 will be used].

• The entitlement under this formula will be limited to the equivalent of two years pay plus €15,000. Calculation of a year’s pay to be the same as the calculation method used in 2019.
• The total amount payable under this formula will not exceed total expected earnings up until normal retirement age. Where a worker’s entitlement under these terms exceeds their total expected earnings up until their normal retirement age, the entitlement to statutory redundancy will be excluded from the calculation of this limit and paid in full.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
FC	______________________
7 June 2024	Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to Fiona Corcoran, Court Secretary.