Labour Court recommends four years’ craft allowance payments at Carlow County Council

The Labour Court recommended that Carlow County Council pay three general operatives for craft allowance they missed from 2010 to 2014. The recommendation was signed on 1 November 2016. The Services Industrial Professional Technical Union said the workers were entitled to the allowance under a 1984 national agreement. The Council said it had paid the allowance until 2010, when an administration error led to it stopping, and that payments resumed in late 2014. The Court found the allowance had not been paid from approximately October 2010 to late 2014. It said payroll records supported payment from 2004 to 2010, while the union could not establish non-payment before then. The recommended payment is to be calculated using the annual average of the allowance paid in the two years from October 2014 to October 2016, for each of the four years of missed payments.