Industrial action by a “strong cohort” of adjudication officers at the Workplace Relations Commission is on the table after many of them were told to speed up their decision-making or face having their caseloads halved.
It is understood WRC director-general Audrey Cahill emailed a number of adjudicators on Wednesday about cases where decisions had not yet been issued more than six months on from their final hearing dates.
Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, say that in the emails, the officials were told that if they failed to speed up their decision-making, they would have their caseloads temporarily cut by up to half in May.
The WRC’s stated policy is that decisions on employment rights matters are returned within six weeks, but this is rarely adhered to.
The tribunal has around 50 adjudication officers. This includes around a dozen civil servants at assistant principal officer grade, a pay scale that starts at over €80,000, along with a larger cohort of external adjudicators. It is understood the emails went only to the non-Civil Service adjudicators.
The external adjudicators are paid on the basis of a €525 day rate to hear statutory complaints under employment and equality legislation. They can also claim for a maximum of 48 days a year spent writing their decisions.
Sources pointed out that the external adjudicators’ day rates have not risen since 2017, so their pay has failed to keep pace with that of their civil service colleagues, whose salaries had increased in line with public sector pay.
One source said the external adjudicators were “raging about it” after receiving the emails, which it was said could in effect act as a “recruiting agent” for a move to unionise adjudicators.
“For someone who’s supposed to be leading the WRC, it’s an unusual act,” the source said of Ms Cahill.
“The external adjudicators are professional barristers. Three or four of them are former senior HR directors. Two or three are former senior trade union officials,” the source said. “We don’t like being treated in this fashion. We’re being treated as children,” the source added.
“This will possibly escalate very quickly. We’ve engaged, first in mediation, then conciliation. We had to go to the Labour Court. We tried our best to engage. There’s a strong cohort of adjudication officers who would be of a mind to ballot on industrial action,” another source said.
“No-one’s disputing this isn’t an issue,” the source said of the timeline for delivering decisions.
“This isn’t like the WRC are offering us more paid writing-up days to clear the backlog. This is with just the existing resources we have that we are to achieve more,” the source added.
It was a “massive escalation out of nowhere” to “cut our income, essentially without notice”, the source added.
“The reaction to this may not be the reaction the director-general wants. There’s no-one here who can’t get other work. We do this because we like it and it’s regular and stable. If it’s unstable, she may see people do dramatically less,” the source added.
Another source pointed out that external adjudicators had the option of taking on private work in statutory mediation and private investigations which could pay €1,500 to €2,000 a day.
That source said: “If our pay is cut in May, we will be putting in claims to the WRC under the Industrial Relations Acts, which will put our colleagues in an invidious position. It’s pitting colleague against colleague.”
“A lot of us are minded at this stage to engage in industrial action,” the source added.
Sources also said that some apparently-delayed decisions were actually cases where parties had settled without ensuring the statutory complaint had been withdrawn, while delays were also arising when litigants failed to file post-hearing submissions in time.
In a statement, a Department of Enterprise spokesperson, on behalf of the WRC, said: “In the context of the independent adjudicators who are engaged on a contract for services basis, the terms of which are clear and unambiguous, and where the obligations of the WRC to our service users are not being met effectively, the director-general will reserve her right to ensure that appropriate action is taken to remedy the matter to always deliver efficiently”.
