In what we hope to be a regular feature on the Peninsula Ireland Blog, we will be looking at landmark case decisions and how they have impacted Best Practice in Employment Law and Human Resources. Some cases may not be recent but nevertheless carry the same prominence now as they did when the decisions were first issued and all will be particularly relevant to practitioners, either in regards to how best to deal with issues, or important updates to make to Employment Documentation as a result.
The first of this series is the decision of the Labour Court in An Post and Thomas/Riordan, which is quite interesting and should be noted in respect of annual leave entitlements. This case relates to part-time employees’ access to additional annual leave entitlements based on their length of service.
Background
In this case, two job-sharing post office clerks appealed against a Rights Commissioners (RC) finding that they had not been discriminated against on grounds of their part-time status.
Summary
An Post operated a scheme whereby the basic annual leave entitlement was 23 days for full-time employees. One additional day’s leave accrued after five years' service and a further day after ten years.
Both claimants in this case had over ten years' service. Accordingly the respondent increased their annual leave entitlement from 11.5 days to 12.5 days annual leave, the latter being exactly half the total of 25 days provided to an equivalent full time worker. This was to reflect the fact that each worked on a week-on week-off basis and thus worked half the number of hours of a full time employee, i.e. 40 hours per fortnight. The RC found that this pro rata approach complied with the 2001 Act and dismissed their claim.
At the Labour Court, the respondent continued to argue that such pro rata treatment complied with the Act. However, the claimant’s trade union argued that the service related portion of annual leave was an entitlement accruing on the basis of service only and therefore should not be calculated on a pro rata basis. The Court agreed with the union and determined that the principle of pro rata should not apply in this case. This meant that the claimants should have had their annual leave entitlement increased from 11.5 days to 13.5 days as the respondent’s annual leave policy only stated that the granting of two additional days leave was conditional on ten years’ service and it did not reserve the right to pro rata leave this entitlement.
Impact
The implications for this case relates primarily to Employment Documentation of Companies, as this case decision should require employers to specify that any additional annual leave that is awarded to an employee as a result of their length of service will be awarded on a pro rata basis. To take this further, employers should also specify that in periods spent on a reduced working week or short time, annual leave will be accrued on a pro rata rate to avoid a scenario where employees are accruing annual leave at their full rate.
In what we hope to be a regular feature on the Peninsula Ireland Blog, we will be looking at landmark case decisions and how they have impacted Best Practice in Employment Law and Human Resources. Some cases may not be recent but nevertheless carry the same prominence now as they did when the decisions were first issued and all will be particularly relevant to practitioners, either in regards to how best to deal with issues, or important updates to make to Employment Documentation as a result.
The first of this series is the decision of the Labour Court in An Post and Thomas/Riordan, which is quite interesting and should be noted in respect of annual leave entitlements. This case relates to part-time employees’ access to additional annual leave entitlements based on their length of service.
Background
In this case, two job-sharing post office clerks appealed against a Rights Commissioners (RC) finding that they had not been discriminated against on grounds of their part-time status.
Summary
An Post operated a scheme whereby the basic annual leave entitlement was 23 days for full-time employees. One additional day’s leave accrued after five years' service and a further day after ten years.
Both claimants in this case had over ten years' service. Accordingly the respondent increased their annual leave entitlement from 11.5 days to 12.5 days annual leave, the latter being exactly half the total of 25 days provided to an equivalent full time worker. This was to reflect the fact that each worked on a week-on week-off basis and thus worked half the number of hours of a full time employee, i.e. 40 hours per fortnight. The RC found that this pro rata approach complied with the 2001 Act and dismissed their claim.
At the Labour Court, the respondent continued to argue that such pro rata treatment complied with the Act. However, the claimant’s trade union argued that the service related portion of annual leave was an entitlement accruing on the basis of service only and therefore should not be calculated on a pro rata basis. The Court agreed with the union and determined that the principle of pro rata should not apply in this case. This meant that the claimants should have had their annual leave entitlement increased from 11.5 days to 13.5 days as the respondent’s annual leave policy only stated that the granting of two additional days leave was conditional on ten years’ service and it did not reserve the right to pro rata leave this entitlement.
Impact
The implications for this case relates primarily to Employment Documentation of Companies, as this case decision should require employers to specify that any additional annual leave that is awarded to an employee as a result of their length of service will be awarded on a pro rata basis. To take this further, employers should also specify that in periods spent on a reduced working week or short time, annual leave will be accrued on a pro rata rate to avoid a scenario where employees are accruing annual leave at their full rate.
