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FULL RECOMMENDATION
PARTIES : SECURITAS SECURITY SERVICES IRELAND LIMITED DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1. Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No: ADJ-00030656 CA-00040931-001. reasons set out above.’’ A Labour Court hearing took place on 13 October 2021.
This is an appeal by the Worker from a Recommendation of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00030656, dated 28 June 2021) under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969. The Worker’s Notice of Appeal was received by the Court on 1 August 2021. The Court heard the appeal on 13 October 2021 in a virtual courtroom. The Worker’s employment transferred to Securitas Security Services Ireland Limited (‘the Company’) on foot of a transfer of undertakings in 2015. The Company did not receive a copy of a written contract or statement of terms and conditions for the Worker from the transferor at that time. Nor has the Worker ever submitted a copy of any such document in the intervening period to the Company. The Company received a spreadsheet prior to the transfer that indicated that the Worker was contracted to work a 39-hour week. The Company employs security operatives that have transferred to its employment over the years from different transferees. The workers had varying contractual arrangements. It appears the Company entered into a voluntary agreement with the majority of its workers that provided inter alia for standardised overtime arrangements. The Worker is not party to that agreement as he declined the Company’s invitation to sign up to it. He told the Court that his agreement with the Company is as follows: he works 39 hours per week and receives one extra shift per fortnight which is paid at an overtime rate. He told the Court, however, that he has historically worked hours under this arrangement for which he hasn’t been fully remunerated. He cited an email dated 3 June 2020 and sent from his trade union representative to the Company in support of this aspect of his complaint. The Worker complains that his colleagues who are party to the agreement he declined to sign up to have more favourable arrangements in relation to overtime working than he has and they receive additional overtime hours over and above those available to him. He submits that he is being penalised for not signing up to the agreement. The Worker also raised a number of additional issues at the within hearing of his appeal which were not canvassed before the Adjudication Officer and which the Court informed the Parties were, therefore, not before it and would not be addressed in the Court’s Decision. Discussion and Decision Both Parties to the within appeal confirmed to the Court that their understanding is that overtime is offered by the Company on a voluntary basis and is accepted by the workers concerned on a voluntary basis. Those who signed the agreement referred to by the Worker did so on a voluntary basis. The Worker exercised his prerogative and declined to sign the agreement. He has an individual arrangement with regard to overtime as referred to previously. He cannot, therefore, complain that his arrangement is otherwise than that which applies to fellow workers who voluntarily chose to sign up to an agreement which he declined to sign up to. This aspect of his appeal, therefore, fails and the Recommendation of the Adjudication Officer is upheld. Finally, in response to the Worker’s submission that he has been underpaid for overtime hours worked in the past, the Company’s representative gave an undertaking that the Worker would be reimbursed for any such hours in circumstances where he can substantiate his complaint in this regard. The Court recommends that the Worker provide to the Company any information and/or documentation he has available to support this complaint in early course. It further recommends that the Company respond expeditiously to finalise this matter on receipt of any such information or documentation from the Worker. The Court so decides.
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