Fórsa has reapplied to the conciliation service at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to address an outstanding claim regarding job evaluation at local authorities.

The union is seeking to go back into discussion at the Labour Court with the employer, but the original claim dates back more than five years and must now be referred to the conciliation service.

The dispute refers to a union claim to introduce a job evaluation system for clerical and administrative staff. Fórsa’s head of local government, Dessie Robinson, said the referral was made in order to restart Labour Court proceedings on the long-running dispute.

Job evaluation is an established tool that allows the knowledge, skills and responsibilities associated with individual jobs – rather than grades or staff categories – to be assessed and appropriately rewarded.

Dessie referenced the union’s position, due to the loss of almost 10,000 council jobs following the financial crisis, that services had only been maintained because staff had taken on additional responsibilities above their pay grades.

“Fórsa is seeking to have a local authority job evaluation scheme similar to the one that operates in the HSE and the education sector.

“The austerity era led to such a massive reduction of numbers of employees, which resulted in grade drift within the sector,” he said.

The union maintains there are disparities in pay rates across the local government sector, where staff doing the same work could be paid more or less depending on which of the 31 councils they work for.

Fórsa maintains that this is one of the reasons the employers were so strenuous in their opposition to a job evaluation scheme for the sector in the past, and refused to agree to go to the Labour Court to consider the claim.

The dispute was aired in the Labour Court in 2020, and the Court ordered Fórsa to present a business case to support its claim. The union had completed this work, but the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), which represents council employers, had refused to return to the Labour Court.

The union continues to pursue the matter.

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