The Labour Court has issued a recommendation to maintain shift premiums for redeployed homeless hostel staff in Dublin City Council (DCC). The staff receive a time-plus-one-quarter shift premium.

A review carried out in 2013 led to a decision to close the DCC homeless hostel service. IMPACT assistant general secretary Phil McFadden explained, “As much as we didn’t want our members to be transferred, the next step was ensuring the best possible outcome for them. We sought to retain the shift allowance for all of the 23 staff involved.

“Initially, the employer only wanted to give this allowance to some of the staff involved. IMPACT’s view was that this approach would have been unfair.” he said.

A ballot of members followed and the union presented its case to the Labour Court.  Phil said, “The Court agreed that retaining the premium for all of the staff would be the most equitable approach. We made the case because we needed to ensure our members did not suffer unjustly because of circumstances outside of their control.”