This article is from page 32 of the 2008-07-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 32 JPG
THE Labour Court has dismissed a claim by SIPTU for holiday pay at Ryan Brothers (Quarry) Ltd, ruling that it would produce an absurd re- Ste
The dispute between the company and union arose over the interpreta- tion and application of a holiday pay and bonus agreement.
According to the court, the dispute centred on the agreement relating to holiday pay struck in 2005 which stated that “when an employee is
taking annual leave, the average overtime earnings of the previous 13 weeks are calculated and a pay- ment of 50 per cent of this is added to the holiday pay for each day’s leave roe
The Labour Court stated: “The problem is that the union’s interpre- tation would give an employee five times as much as the company’s in- terpretation.
“The parties contacted the employ- ee relations facilitator and arbitrator who was involved in the agreement in October, 2005, for his interpreta-
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In his reply the arbitrator stated: “It would transgress the bounds of com- mon sense to have both parties agree to an agreement whereby the over- time element added to the holiday pay would be 2.5 times greater than the actual average weekly overtime for the proceeding 13 weeks.”
The dispute was referred to the La- bour Relations Commission and a conciliation conference took place.
‘As the parties did not reach agree- ment the dispute was referred to the Labour Court on 30 November, 2007
and a Labour Court hearing recently took place.
According to the union, the agree- ment of 2005 was quite clear in its wording: There is no mention of di- viding the weekly average overtime by 5 and then applying 50 per cent of this figure per day’s leave.
Both sides accepted the wording in the agreement. The company stated that it was at a loss as to how the Un- ion came to its interpretation.
The company stated: “No reason- able employer could be expected to pay an employee 2.5 times the aver-
age overtime earnings for each day’s annual leave taken. The facilitator agreed with the company’s interpre- tation.”
In its formal recommendation, the Labour Court stated that it “is of the view that the interpretation placed on the agreement by the union would produce an absurd result which could not have been intended.
Furthermore, the wording of the agreement does not support the in- terpretation. Accordingly, the court supports the company’s construction of the clause at issue.”