Novartis told to up pay scales

CORK-based pharmaceutical company, Novartis has been instructed by the Labour Court to increase worker pay scales up to a maximum of €49,350.

Industrial Relations News (IRN) reported that following a Labour Relations Commission Agreement in 2003, an independent benchmarking report was concluded and accepted by management and the union (Siptu) in 2005.

The union and management entered negotiations on agreeing a pay range in line with the report.

Management agreed to an incremental salary scale over a 10-year period.

However, both parties disagreed over the increments and range of pay.

According to the union, the low level of entry rate pay offered by the company was not competitive.

IRN said: “The union submitted that the level of pay of its members was well below the median level of €28,900, and the maximum point of the company’s scale €41,000 was also well below the upper quartile of comparative companies.”

The union noted that management proposed extending the salary scale from 8 points to 10 and approved the entry level pay offer to €29,000. The maximum of the scale was extended to €46,000. In an attempt to settle the long-standing issue, the union proposed a nine-point scale as a compromise and a salary scale from €29,000 to €49,000. Management did not accept this proposal.

Local discussions and LRC talks failed to resolve the dispute, and the union said that management did not address its formal claim for a salary scale of €33,000 to €49,000 in eight incremental points retrospective to January 2006.

The company responded that the union is seeking a pay scale that represents increases ranging from 3.4% to 6.5% above the proposed scale from the company. Such a claim is not valid under Clause 1.4 of the Towards 2016 agreement.

The court proposed that the appropriate salary scale be €29,000 to €49,350 over 10 increments. The effective date should be January 1, 2006, as agreed by the parties.