LCR23101

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Pandemic Special Recognition Payment.

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 14November 2024 in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 20 January 2025.

UNION'S ARGUMENTS: 

1. The Union states its members were essential workers given their location and remained on site during the pandemic as frontline workers.

2. The Union seek the Court to recommend its members receive the pandemic Special Recognition Payment (PSRP) as set out by Government on 19 January 2022.

EMPLOYER'S ARGUMENTS: 

1. The Employer states the employees were employed in a private hospital, one that is not governed by the HSE and falls under the jurisdiction of the Mental health Commission under the Mental Health Act, 2001.                 

2. The location the employees were employed was a private hospital and therefore does not qualify for the Special Recognition Payment (PSRP) as set out by government guidelines.

RECOMMENDATION:

The Court has given very careful consideration to the written and oral submissions of the parties. The workers in this dispute seek a Covid Recognition Payment from their employer on the basis that such recognition was given to workers involved in the same work as themselves delivering service, including through contracting companies, to Public Health Care facilities.

The employer is a private company providing cleaning services to another private rather than public entity providing health care services. The employer in the trade dispute rejects the claims of the workers.

There is no dispute that workers in the public health care sector engaged in the same or similar work as the workers in this trade dispute received a Covid Recognition Payment under a scheme funded by the State. There is no contention that the State funded such a scheme to have effect in the private health care sector.

The Court notes that the employer sought State funding for payment of a Covid Recognition Payment to the workers, but the relevant Government Department appears to have made clear that the State was not operating a scheme for contract cleaning staff engaged by a private operator providing services to a private entity providing health care services.

It is not disputed that the staff directly employed by the employer’s client on the site where the workers involved in this trade dispute are or were located, made a COVID Recognition payment to its own staff notwithstanding that no funding was provided by the State to the client employer to fund such a payment to its staff. The employer in the trade dispute before the Court has however rejected the claim for such a payment by its staff employed on the client site through the pandemic.

The Court, having regard to the undisputed fact that the workers concerned in the within claim delivered service in a health care setting which was vital to the continued operation of that service through the pandemic, believes that this contribution should, in the interest of good industrial relations, be recognised.

The Court therefore recommends that those staff who, if the client site of the employer was a public health care facility, would have qualified for and received a payment under the State’s Covid Recognition Scheme, should, as a gesture of good will, be recognised for their effort by their employer.

The Court therefore recommends that the employer should make a payment of €500 to each such employee. This payment to be made in the most tax efficient manner possible having regard to Revenue rules and should be accepted in full and final settlement of the within trade dispute.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
TH	______________________
4th February 2025	Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.