Labour Court recommends revised shift buy-out schedule at Bausch and Lomb

The Labour Court recommended on 8 December 2008 that Bausch and Lomb Ireland and the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union adopt a revised schedule for compensating employees who changed shift patterns. Under the recommendation, the buy-out rises from 36 weeks for employees with 11 years on shifts to 78 weeks for those with 25 years; other parts of the conciliation proposal would remain. The union said the shift buy-out formula had not increased alongside other formulas and that automation could reduce shift work. The company said it had reviewed comparable firms and that only the time scale remained in dispute. About 1,400 employees worked different patterns at the company’s Waterford contact-lens plant.