HSE Front line staff - Temporary (Agency) vs. Permanent questions.

[dtlyn]

Seeking a bit of advice on the following situation. Feel free to move this around if I'm in the wrong forum.

My partner is a an Agency employee working for a HSE client (a large hospital). She recently learned that due to renegotiation with the HSE, that her pay is to be cut by 15%.

She and about a dozen of her workmates make up the spine of the workforce in a particular department, and they are really upset by this enforced cut. In particular, these employees are hired on a "Temporary Contract" (she has been working for 18 months, others for up to 3 years) basis of indeterminate length. They receive no pension contributions, sick pay and must work up holidays in advance to a maximum of 20. Other employees who are employed on the same basis by the HSE directly are working with a much more attractive benefits package, and now at far better rates. The permanent employees have exactly the same responsibilities, sometimes working in more junior roles to the senior contracted staff. The temporary staff participate in training programmes, goal setting, reviews and over-time as would a permanent employee. Expectations are explicitly the same and I would argue implicitly greater on the Temporary Contracted staff.

This position is causing a lot of upset, friction and resentment with in the department, essentially amplifying an already prevailing two tier set of working conditions.

While I don't think any of the front line staff are to blame for this, personally, I think it's grossly unjust that a selection of employees are protected by unions and the croke park agreement, while others remain at the mercy of ad-hoc changes to working conditions.

While researching this, I came across "Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2003/en/act/pub/0029/print.html

My (non-expert) reading of this tells me that Fixed-Term contracting staff are protected against this kind of (what I would term) discrimination, however there is no provision for contracts of non-determinate length.

So my questions are three fold.

1. Despite my reading of it, does the act mentioned above afford any protection in this area?
2. My partner's contract explicitly states her rate of pay, does any reduction in this constitute some form of unenforceable breach in contract?
3. Does anybody have any other experience or advice in dealing with this kind of situation?


Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

[lff12]

To be honest its a blatant attempt to evade responsibility under the 2003 Temp Workers Directives Act. AFAIK essentially what HSE is doing is taking on temp staff to avoid giving them the same pay and responsibilities. Best place to argue this out, however, is the labour court.

As a (non health) contractor myself, part of the defined benefit of working as a contractor is that you don't have similar structures - you have individually defined goals and roles, you don't answer to a manager in the same way and you certainly don't just blindly follow the same HR processes - yours are defined in your contract.

Under 2003 act workers on contract are entitled the same rate of pay and conditions as a permanent staff member. Using contracts to annull this only works if terms and conditions are genuinely different, and by its nature, on an individual basis.

Best thing to do is to take the case to the labour court rather than on here.