Labour Court recommends review of drivers’ loss-of-earnings calculations

The Labour Court recommended that Bus Éireann provide the NBRU and the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union with data comparing two ways of calculating average earnings for drivers. The recommendation was dated 4 December 2020. The dispute concerned payments under an earlier recommendation. Bus Éireann said it had paid €1,640,316 to 600 drivers who experienced loss of earnings. The Court found an information deficit about the meaning of average earnings and how they had been calculated. The Court recommended that the company identify occasions when it had used a daily average and share data comparing that method with a straight average. If running both calculations for all drivers was impractical, it recommended using an agreed sample. Any issues arising should go through normal industrial relations procedures.