LCR23159

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00045760 (CA-00056616-001 IR - SC - 00001386)

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour Court on 27 December 2024

in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

On 28 November 2024, the Adjudication Officer issued the following Recommendation.

“I recommend an acting up allowance at point 10 of the Storekeeper Clerk in Charge scale of 36.77

euro a week be conceded to the Worker dating from 10th December 2018 until 17th March 2023.’’          A Labour Court hearing took place on 4 July 2025.

DECISION:

This is an appeal by a Worker of an Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation in relation to a complaint made by him in relation to the payment of a Higher Duty Allowance.

The Worker is employed as a Store person and is classified as a State Industrial Employee. He is paid according to the Storeman pay-scale. The Worker contends that he carried out the duties of the higher Civil Servant grade - Clerical Officer – between 2011 and 2023 and that his employer has failed to pay him for those additional duties.

The Worker seeks that the Court recommend payment of a Higher Duty Allowance from 2 September 2011 to the 17 March 2023 when he ceased carrying out the additional duties. The total amount of arrears owed amounts to a total of €20,720.37.

The Employer refutes that the Worker “acted up” in higher duties since 2011. It accepts that the Worker occasionally undertook additional duties of Clerical Officer in the period from December 2018 to March 2023 when a colleague was absent on sick leave. It submits that in an effort to address that matter the Employer proposed to pay the worker arrears of six months Higher Duty Allowance based on the grade of Storekeeper-in-Charge not Clerical Officer grade. That offer was rejected. 

The Court heard that the Employer failed to attend the Adjudication Officer hearing due to an administrative error, and while the Adjudication Officers recommendation provided for considerably greater arrears, it did not to appeal that recommendation in the hope that would bring finality to the matter.

The Court has given careful consideration to the written and oral submissions of the parties.

The Court notes that the Worker has a very genuine sense of grievance about his employer’s failure to pay him for additional duties undertaken.

In 2021 he progressed a claim for “acting up” to the post of Clerical Officer which was rejected on the grounds that there is no mechanism for “acting up” from the State industrial stream of grades to the Clerical /Administrative stream of grades in the public sector. 

The Worker subsequently pursued a claim for payment of a Higher Duty Allowance for additional duties that he says that he carried out between September 2011 until 17 March 2023, when he ceased the duties.

The parties are clearly in dispute about the extent and duration of additional duties carried out by the Worker.  While the Worker maintains that he has undertaken additional duties since 2011, the employer maintains that higher duties were only carried after December 2018 and during periods when a colleague was absent on sick leave.

The Court has regularly emphasised that where workplace issues arise, it is important that they are addressed in a timely manner. In this case, no adequate explanation was provided to the Court to explain why the Worker delayed in progressing a claim for a Higher Duty Allowance before 2021.

Based on the information provided, the Court can see no basis for concession of the workers claim for retrospective payment of a Higher Duty Allowance for the period between 2011 and 2018.

Having regard to all of the circumstance of this case, the Court recommends that the parties accept the recommendation of the Adjudication Officer as a reasonable proposal for resolution of the dispute. The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Katie Connolly
AR	______________________
7 July 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

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