This Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent on the 8th of November 1976 as a ‘Leading Hand Painter’. The dispute concerns the application of an agreement at the point of retirement.

A restructuring took place within the Respondent company in 1996. Under the restructuring, the Complainant’s group sought to have its role upgraded from Grade B to Grade C by means of a job evaluation process, but this was unsuccessful. It was acknowledged at the time that, in the future, it was unlikely that the painters’ role would change sufficiently to meet the criteria for an upgrade in salary.  It was therefore agreed that if that did happen, the remaining members of the painter’s group would be awarded a 4% increase of pensionable pay upon retirement. All other named employees received this, the last of whom retired in 2008.

However, the company did not include the  Complainant in the agreement as the painter’s role was not deemed to be a “front-line or core” role. Since then, the Complainant (the only employee on site not included in the agreement) received an average of any annual pay increase agreed on site (but no cash bonus to date). The Complainant’s memo shows that he was promised Grade C (4%) on retirement.

The Respondent disagrees with the Complainant’s submission that he is entitled to a 4% increase in salary upon retirement.  The Respondent is of the view that he would only receive the pension benefit of “C” rate (4% on basic pay) on retirement if he had not received this in his own right before then. The Respondent relied on communication to the company’s payroll department from the Respondent’s then HR business partner in August 2001.

The Respondent added further that the other painters referred to in the agreement who retired in 2004 and 2007 respectively, did not receive a 4% increase to their pay on retirement as they had already reached the “C” rate in their own right and accordingly, their pay on retirement was substantially less than that of the Complainant.  The Respondent does not believe the agreement entitles the Complainant to a further increase on reaching retirement as he has already far exceeded the  ‘grade C’ rate.

The Adjudication Officer noted that this was an interesting case in that there was considerable merit in each party’s submission.

The Complainant relied on the 2001 agreement. The purpose of the agreement was to ensure that the Complainant was not disadvantaged in his pension as a result of the aftermath of the re-structuring and re-organisation.

The Respondent, on the other hand says that, as a result of general pay movements the obligation foreseen by the agreement to the Complainant has been met and exceeded and that the terms of the 2001 agreement have been overtaken by events.

The Adjudication Officer did not uphold the Complainant’s specific claim, but did recognise that it had some merit. The Adjudication Officer referred to the fact that there had been an element of expectation created by the ambiguity of the agreement and took this into account in the recommendation made. The Adjudication Officer did not uphold the Complainant’s claim for payment of a further 4% pensionable increase, but did recommended that the Complainant be paid €2,500.00 in final settlement of the matter.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2021/august/adj-00031723.html

This case was appealed to the Labour Court and a review of that decision is available here.