The Labour Court rejected Sally Ann Cunningham’s appeal over maternity-leave pay from the Waterford Wexford Education Training Board, leaving in place the decision that her Payment of Wages Act complaint was not well founded. The determination was dated 11 July 2016.
Cunningham, a teacher and tutor employed by the board, sought €16,316.04. She said her maternity-leave salary should have been based on all her contractual hours, including 16 hours of tutoring each week. During leave from 18 August 2014 to 23 February 2015, her maternity pay, less statutory benefit, was based only on nine teaching hours.
The board argued that her contracts provided for maternity-leave pay on her teaching hours, while her tutor contracts made no provision for salary during leave. The Court agreed. It found no evidence that full pay across all her hours had been agreed at a 2012 meeting, and did not accept that payments to other tutors established a sufficiently certain and established practice.
The Court said Cunningham’s appeal failed and the Adjudication Officer’s decision stood.