LCR22673

1. Introduction of Travel Time Payment

BACKGROUND:

2. The employer is MEBSCA (Mechanical Engineering and Building Services Contractors Association) a representative body for employers in the mechanical engineering sector. The employer body is represented by the CIF (Construction Industry Federation). The employees are all staff involved in the mechanical/engineering building sector represented by UNITE and CONNECT. There are no other unions involved in this issue.

The Unions submitted a claim for a travel time payment for all workers in the sector. The claim was raised in the context of pay talks for the sector.

As agreement was not reached under the auspices of the WRC, the dispute was referred to the Labour Court on 3^rd August 2022 in accordance with Section 26(1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990. A Labour Court hearing took place on 28^th September 2022.


UNION ARGUMENTS:

1. The sector has been subject to SEOs and pay agreements over the last few years (2018-2023). Pay progression over this period of time has amounted to 1.9% average per year for workers in the sector which is significantly below industrial norms.

2. The Unions seek to restore the first hour of travel time payment over time, without reduction to the hourly rate of pay.

3. The Unions seek to reintroduce the one hour’s daily travel time in two increments:

• a. 0.5 hour a day travel from 1^st January 2023
  b. 0.5 hour a day travel from 1^st January 2024

EMPLOYER ARGUMENTS:

1. In 2011, in the midst of a severe recession, MEBSCA members agreed to incorporate the first hour of travel time daily into the hourly rate. Workers travelling more than four miles are paid additional travel time.

2. MEBSCA members pay travel allowances that are linked to hourly rates.Iincreases in hourly rates automatically result in increases in the value of travel time payments.

3. Mechanical workers employed by MEBSCA members are paid at a higher rate than those employed by non-MEBSCA companies. Further wage cost increases would render MEBSCA companies uncompetitive.

Travel time is paid in this sector and has been a feature of arrangements in the sector for many years. In 2011 the parties concluded a collective agreement which consolidated payment for the first hour of travel time each day into the basic rate. Prior to the conclusion of that agreement, payment for the first hour of travel time each day was paid as a separate payment to the basic rate.

That agreement was concluded in the circumstances of the time and can be concluded to have reflected the parties’ then assessment of an appropriate collective agreement to put in place in the circumstances.

There is no dispute therefore that the basic rate in the sector includes the value of consolidation of the payment for the first hour of travel time each day. The claim before the Court therefore amounts to a claim to reverse the 2011 collective agreement in part and to pay the first hour of travel time each day as a separate payment to the basic rate, while at the same time retaining the current basic rate which includes the consolidation of the first hour of travel time into the basic rate as agreed in 2011.

The parties are agreed that the cost of concession of the claim of the Trade Unions would be equivalent to 12.8% of the current basic rate.

The Court has noted carefully the submissions of the Trade Unions which comprehensively set out the history of agreements in the sector and the nature of changing circumstances in the sector over the years and in the economy generally.

The Court however cannot view the claim as amounting to anything other than a claim to maintain the value in the basic rate established by the 2011 consolidation agreement, while at the same time reversing the 2011 consolidation into basic pay of the payment for the first hour of travel time each day.

The Court can find no reasonable basis to recommend concession of the claim.

The Court so recommends.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
NCL	______________________
8 November 2022	Chairman