Labour Court recommends talks on caretaker’s lost overtime

The Labour Court recommended that Mayo County Council and the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union discuss how to address a caretaker’s position after restructuring removed five weekly overtime hours. The recommendation was signed on 4 March 2011. The union said the worker had received regular overtime since 1988 and the council had cut pay without prior consultation. The council said the union had agreed to the restructuring and to replacing overtime pay with time off in lieu. The Court found the overtime loss was an inevitable and foreseeable result of the agreement, but that it did not expressly cover the worker’s position. It recommended that the parties discuss how to address the resulting anomaly.