NERA QUARTERLY REVIEW 2012

Following the publication of the National Employment Review Authority’s (NERA) 2011 review, NERA have published their first quarterly review for 2012. Included in the review were details on the volume of calls received, prosecutions as well as other employment issues including collective redundancies, training rates of pay, employment permits, enforcement of EAT/Labour court orders, Protection of Young Person’s licences, and reform of employment rights bodies.

Volume of calls

NERA received 18,560 calls in the first quarter of 2012 which represented a decrease of over 36% on 2011. Of the callers, 15,619 were dealt with directly by information officers, with a subsequent 3,141 callers using the NERA 24 hour recorded information service. The decrease in calls is attributed to the transfer of calls relating to redundancy claims to the Department of Social protection in October 2011. Of those calling, 72% were employees/ former employees while an estimated 19% were employers. The low volume of employer calls may be attributable to the fact that NERA do provide directive advice and generally just state the legal position without applying that legal position in a definitive way for the caller. The majority of calls concerned redundancy, working hours, terms of employment, payment of wages and unfair dismissals.

The Workplace Relations Customer Service (WRCS) came into operation this year and it incorporates the existing NERA Information service. The WRCS received 3,587 employment rights complaints in this quarter.

NERA Workplace inspections

In the first quarter NERA carried out a total of 1,083 inspections involving 21,000 employees. This is down by 12% from the previous year (1235 cases). The amount of unpaid wages recovered was €293,020. Peninsula have stated their position previously that there must be a focus on bringing down the recovered wages figure year by year through the effective process of educating employers on their obligations rather than requiring the payment of wages in arrears after the employer has already erred.

Prosecutions

A key part of the NERA function is to prosecute employers for non-compliance with their employment legislation obligations. This is a measure that is only adopted once an employer has continuously refused to voluntarily enter into compliance and the figures show that the vast majority of employers do resolve matters before prosecution becomes necessary. In the first quarter of this year 18 cases were referred for prosecution, down from 42 in the same quarter last year. In this quarter 16 have been heard resulting in fines of €31,500 and arrears of wages of over €32,800.

Employment permits

Between January and March of this year’s report, 59 employers were found to be in breach of the Employment Permits Act with 125 persons being detected as working without authorisation. Employment permits, particularly those that pertain to Romanian and Bulgarian employees, tend to be a source of great confusion for employers with many uncertain as to what is required.

Additional Considerations:

Enforcement of EAT/Labour court orders -90 such cases were on hand at the end of March 2012, with 17 cases completed in the three month period ending March 2012

Protection of Young Person’s licences - A total of 42 licences were issued in the first quarter in respect of 69 children working in the arts/television/film industry.

Reform of Employment rights bodies - The new structures will be formally created under the proposed Workplace Relations Bill legislate and established from the end of 2012.

Should you have any queries regarding the NERA Quarterly Report, please do not hesitate to contact the 24 Hour Advice Service on 01 8555050 where one of our advisors will be happy to assist.