IMPACT and Siptu are to run a joint campaign to increase political awareness of the issue of so-called ‘sleepover’ hours in residential care, ahead of renewed talks with management.

The joint campaign approach was agreed following a recent Labour Court decision to direct unions and employers to return to talks in the Labour Relations Commission (LRC). The unions had referred the issue to the Court after LRC-facilitated talks failed to resolve the issue.

IMPACT and Siptu say excessive sleepover demands on staff in residential care facilities put the HSE and the other voluntary employers in breach of Irish and EU working time legislation. Many staff are expected to work 63-hour weeks, while payment for ‘sleepover’ hours is below national minimum wage rates.

IMPACT national secretary Louise O’Donnell said the Court had directed the parties to return to the LRC to try and resolve the issues no later than 31^st May 2014. She said the two unions would now engage in a campaign to inform members about their entitlements.

“We are planning a series of meetings across the country, and we’ll be encouraging members to write to their TDs and councillors to make them aware of the situation. These services cannot be run properly if they rely on routine breaches of working time legislation. It’s bad for staff, it’s bad for service users, and employers need to stop exploiting both,” she said.

The unions also plan to make a complaint to the European Commission, citing management’s continuing breaches of the EU working time directive and its failure to implement recommendations from relevant European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings. The ECJ ‘SIMAP’ judgment defined all time when the worker was required to be present on site as working hours for the purposes of work and rest calculations. Its ‘Jaeger’ judgment confirmed that this was the case even if workers could sleep when their services were not required.