WRC recovers €1m in unpaid wages
by Niall Shanahan
 
pandemic.
pandemic.

Last year the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) recovered just under €1 million in employees’ unpaid wages. It inspected 4,500 workplaces as Covid restrictions coincided with a significant increase in demand for its services.

 

Some 12,000 individual complaints were received by the WRC’s adjudication service in 2021, while the number of hearings that took place increased by 75% on the previous year. Almost all the hearings were held virtually, and almost 90% of disputes dealt with at the WRC through its conciliation service were resolved.

 

The information is detailed in the WRC’s 2021 annual report, published last week, and details how the variety of services responded both to the demands imposed by the pandemic, in addition to its response to an increasing demand for services.

 

Operating remotely, the WRC’s information line dealt with 55,810 calls, an increase of almost 6% on 2020. The body’s inspectorate completed 3,433 inspections, and helped monitor the Covid return to work safely protocol along with the Health and Safety Authority.

 

WRC director general Liam Kelly said the State body was required to continuously fashion its services to changing circumstances during the pandemic. “Despite the challenges posed by Covid, the WRC handled a 6% increase in enquiries, an 8% increase in individual and collective disputes, and scheduled more adjudication hearings than prior to Covid.”

 

Mr Kelly added that, during the period, the WRC also published a code of practice on the right to disconnect and opened a new office in Cork, which is now hosting the vast majority of in-person adjudication and conciliation hearings in the region.

 

Read the annual report HERE.

 

 

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