Building sector complaints surge

COMPLAINTS to the Labour Court about construction firms failing to register workers for a mandatory pension and sickness scheme rose 75% last year after the Irish Examiner exposed the issue.

In a series of Irish Examiner investigations in late 2003, the Construction Federation Operatives Pension Scheme (CFOPS) was shown to have significant non-compliance problems, which left many workers and their families without benefit in the case of injury or death.

Numerous families of those killed in the industry had been denied vital death benefits because employers declined to register and pay for their employees to join the scheme. Up to 50,000 construction workers who should have been registered were not covered.

Following the investigations, the Pensions Board and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment launched a review, which has not yet been completed, of the scheme and its compliance problems.

But the Labour Court’s annual report published today reveals that complaints about alleged breaches of the construction industry’s pension and sickness scheme jumped by 75% last year.

Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy said a 21% increase in cases referred to the court from all sectors was mainly due to a significant rise in the number of complaints received from employers and unions in the construction industry alleging breaches of the Registered Employment Agreement (REA) for the Industry on pensions assurance and sick-pay.

He said this reflects a greater level of monitoring by union and employer bodies of the level of adherence to the REA in the industry.

Of 1,317 industrial relations cases received by the court last year, 558 related to complaints by unions of REA breaches, compared to 309 in 2003.

More than 120 complaints of breaches were made by employers.

The report reveals that the workload of the Labour Court has almost doubled in four years, up 90.5% to 1,484 cases from 779 in 2000.

Mr Duffy said this increase was accompanied by a greater degree of complexity in particular cases, with reference to the considerable volume of cases referred after the enactment of the Industrial Relations (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2004, which allows the court investigate a trade dispute on application of a trade union where it is not the practice of the employer to engage in collective bargaining.

Outside of industrial relations cases, 11% of referrals were made under employment rights legislation, the largest number being the Organisation of Working Time Act covering issues such as non-payment of holiday pay, annual leave entitlement and rest periods.