Hotel wage rate dispute settled on technicality

AT A cost of hundreds of thousands of euro to the State, the Irish Hotels Federation and the Labour Court settled their High Court dispute over wage rates for hotel workers on a technicality yesterday — and agreed to revert to an agreement hammered out several weeks before the court even sat.

The Labour Court must pay its own considerable court costs as well as those of the Irish Hotels Federation while the 25,000 provincial hotel workers, who were eligible for higher pay under the wage rate increases, must wait even longer for their payout.

At the end of last year, an independently chaired Joint Labour Committee, comprising representatives of the hotel industry and worker unions, hammered out a set of wage increases that they brought to the Labour Court for ratification.

The court agreed to the Employment Regulation Order, which would rubber-stamp the increases.

However, the federation challenged the constitutionality of the Labour Court’s power to grant the increase and claimed the national pay agreement increases should no longer be consolidated on top of national minimum wage or joint labour committee rate rises. It said this was tantamount to a “double whammy” of increases.

The constitutionality matter was referred to the High Court and an injunction was put on the pay increases until the case was heard.

However, in the interim, a joint committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation mediated on the arguments and formulated an agreement that it proposed to the federation and worker unions on January 17.

Its proposal recommended the hotel’s call for the abolition of the “double whammy” be abandoned, but said there should be a set timeframe implemented to ensure there could be no delays from the hotels in agreeing to the Employment Regulation Order.

That was accepted by both sides, yet the High Court case and all its resultant costs proceeded. In the end the case was abandoned on the technicality.

The court said an economic report on the potential impact of wage increases prepared by the federation and proposed to the Joint Labour Committee was not then forwarded to the Labour Court before it made its recommendation.

Following the costly, but seemingly needless, case the federation said its decision to take the proceedings had been vindicated and that the case was never about challenging wage agreements. It was about what was an unfair and unjust process at the Hotels Joint Labour Committee and the Labour Court.

“Our hope is that the Hotels Joint Labour Committee procedures will result in a enlightened and transparent process,” said John Power of the Irish Hotels Federation.

SIPTU, which represents the hotel workers and which was a named party in the court case, said it remained committed to seeking better pay and conditions for hotel workers.

“We will be going back into to Joint Labour Committee to secure better pay and conditions,” said the union’s industrial secretary, Gerry McCormack.