LCR23050

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Payment of an Availability/ On-Call allowance

BACKGROUND:

This dispute could not be resolved at local level and was the subject of a Conciliation Conference under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission. As agreement was not reached, the dispute was referred to the Labour Court on 25th March 2024 in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 1st October 2024.

UNION'S ARGUMENTS.

1. The Unions position is that the existing arrangements in Clare County Council do not meet the minimum provisions set out in the National Agreement.
2. The Union requests that the Court agree to include on-call allowance for being available as well as the callout payments when staff are actually called out.

EMPLOYER'S ARGUMENTS.

1. The Employer’s position is that the introduction of an out of hours allowance is a national issue which will affect all Local Authorities, not just Clare County Council.
2. The Employer has not rejected the claim outright, but are of the view that any agreement or introduction of such a payment should be consistent across the Local Authority Sector and engaged on nationally and consistently between Uisce Éireann and the Unions.

RECOMMENDATION:

The issue in dispute between the parties is in respect of the application of a national agreement in respect of Availability/On Call allowance. The application of this allowance varies from council to council. The allowance was never paid by this Employer as they have an alternative arrangement in place. The Unions are now seeking payment of the allowance.

The Union stated that in 2005 a National On- Call agreement was reached but never implemented in this employment.  Instead, the council set up a different system the net effect of which is that the crew get paid the call out entitlement when called out but do not get paid the on-call allowance. While the Workers are not assigned specific times to be available after hours, they can get a call at any time.  This failure to implement the national agreement was discussed locally from time to time and a conciliation conference took place in 2018.

The Union attempted on a number of occasions to raise the issue with management. The Employer continued to hold the position that they were happy with the existing arrangements. In 2022 the issue was referred back to conciliation and as the issue could not be resolved in 2024, it was referred to the Court. The Union are now seeking the application of the 2005 agreement to Water Caretakers and Plant Supervisors in the council.

 Mr Irvine LGMA on behalf of the Council submitted that this issue had been raised in other local authorities who also had different procedure for dealing with the on-call requirements and therefore this was a national issue. There is also a complicating factor that under the Framework for the future delivery of water services Uisce Eireann has assumed direction and control of all staff working in Water services.

 Management have raised this case with Uisce Eireann to have advised that any consideration of a claim of this nature will have to have regard to the National position and cannot be negotiated locally. Mr Irvine went to say that Uisce Eireann had established a working group which both the unions pursing this claim are a party to.  Part of the remit of that group is a review which included looking at out of normal working hours requirements and payments.

 In respect of the 2005 agreement, it was a requirement that in order to qualify for the allowance you had to be rostered on call. The Workers who are  the subject of this claim were not rostered on call and would not qualify on that basis.

 The Court having considered the submissions both written and oral of both parties cannot recommend concession of the Unions claim at this point in time. The Court recommends that the parties engage  with this issue at the Uisce Eireann working group.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Louise O'Donnell
AR	______________________
18 October 2024	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

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