We focuse on two recent Labour Court decisions: one relating to the hours and breaks that may, or may not, be counted under minimum wage legislation; the other relating to a request to work reduced hours during pregnancy.


Introduction

Although the legislation provides for it, complaints made to a Rights Commissioner (RC) under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000 (NMW) are comparatively few in number. Accordingly, appeals to the Labour Court under this heading from decisions of RC’s are even rarer. This is because the Labour Inspectorate that is now part of the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA) carries out a substantial amount of inspection work in terms of policing the minimum wage legislation.

In the course of this work,