Labour Court recommends restoring Stobart workers’ Christmas bonus

The Labour Court recommended restoring an unconditional Christmas bonus for eligible Stobart Ireland Limited workers and set out how public holiday pay should be calculated. The recommendation was dated 28 November 2011. The dispute with the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union followed workers’ transfer from Tesco Ireland in November 2009. The union said Stobart was not honouring a collective agreement and sought retrospective bonus and public holiday payments. The company said it had applied the agreement correctly. The Court recommended calculating time-plus-one-half entitlement by actual hours worked on the public holiday. It also recommended restoring the unconditional bonus practice that applied at the time of transfer, including paying workers from whom the bonus was withheld in 2010. It recommended further negotiations under the agreement’s dispute procedures.