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FULL RECOMMENDATION
SECTION 13(9), INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT, 1969 PARTIES : SOUTH INFIRMARY VICTORIA UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
(REPRESENTED BY IRISH BUSINESS AND EMPLOYERS' CONFEDERATION) - AND - A WORKER (REPRESENTED BY IRISH MEDICAL ORGANISATION) DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1. Appeal of Adjudication Officer Recommendation No. ADJ-00021005. This should be accompanied by an agreed job description. The parties should then engage on the plan for the position post the year 2020.” The Worker appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour Court on the 13th December 2019 in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969. A Labour Court hearing took place on the 21st October 2020.
The trade dispute before the Court concerns a claim by a medical consultant for payment at the nationally agreed rate of pay of Head of Department. The rate claimed is greater than the rate of pay of the Claimant. The Claimant was elected by a small number of his peers to act as Head of Department in the anaesthesiology department. The employer submitted that no prior sanction was sought or approved for the appointment of a Head of Department to carry out the role undertaken by the Claimant following his election. The employer has asserted that no appointment can be made to positions of this nature without the prior sanction of the national public funding authority which in this case is the relevant health or public expenditure authority. The employer also asserted that appointments to sanctioned and publicly funded posts are required to be filled by way of competitive recruitment rather than by peer election. The Industrial Relations Act, 1969 at Section 13(2) addresses the issue of the jurisdiction of an Adjudication Officer and by extension this Court on appeal as follows:
It is clear that any consideration of this trade dispute will have to address the national question of how a post is identified as having the criteria to be graded as Head of Department within the meaning of the parties’ national agreement on the rate of pay for such a post. In addition, any such consideration would have to deal with the national question of mechanisms for appointment to such roles. It is axiomatic that any decision issued by the Court in this matter has the potential to affect the criteria under which a post in the publicly funded hospital system qualifies as a Head of Department post within the meaning of the agreed pay scales and also to affect the selection mechanisms for appointment to such posts. It is common case that the issue of the criteria under which a post becomes a Head of Department post is a matter for bargaining between the parties nationally and is not yet the subject of agreement. It is to be presumed that a national arrangement for appointment to posts of Head of Department to be by election of peers would require a collective agreement also at national level insofar as such an arrangement would replace the existing national arrangements for competitive recruitment processes. Taking all of these matters into consideration, the Court concludes that the within trade dispute is in fact a dispute connected with the rates of pay of a body of workers. In those circumstances and noting that the parties before the Court have long established collective bargaining arrangements, the Court, having regard to the Act at Section 13(2), concludes that neither the Adjudication Officer nor the Court on appeal holds jurisdiction in the matter and the appeal succeeds. The Court so decides.
NOTE Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Noel Jordan, Court Secretary. |
