Overtime Pension Ruling

[CorkHome2022]

Had this article sent to me today .
Interesting ruling and big implications for same .

Council road worker entitled to pension payment increase over compulsory overtime | BreakingNews

The pensioner will be entitled to a future increase in his ongoing pension payments to reflect the fact that he worked at least nine hours extra, the judge said

www.breakingnews.ie

Limited to 6 years back payments

Future payments ok

 

[Clamball]

It is interesting but I do not think it will be applicable to too many people. The gentleman who took the case won because he specifically needed to work different hours to the rest of his peers. He had to start at 7 am whereas everyone else started at 8 which meant he had to work 5 hours of compulsory overtime a week. He also had to bring his truck back to the yard after his 4 pm finish time and depending how far away he was this could take over an hour. So his finish time varied but it was always after his regular stop time of 4 pm. There was no evidence in the judgement that this was other than compulsory.

His union raised the issue of the impact of this compulsory overtime impacting on his pension months before he retired. It took years to work through his employers process and then the pension ombudsman before he went to the high court. And the judgement covers from 2014 onwards only not from his retirement date of 2008.

The facts rested on an overtime spreadsheet for the last 3 years he worked which was not disputed. The judge was careful to eliminate annual leave weeks from the calculations which was something the pension ombudsman included. Without that document it would have been impossible to have hard facts.

Given these limitations I don’t think it applies to lots of workers. One interesting fact the judge mentioned was that he application was not out of time as he is paid his pension regularly and he was disputing the amount he was receiving in that given week/month which would allow others who dispute their regular pension payment to take a case at any time after retirement. But the compensation if any would only go 6 years back from the date of taking the claim, not the date the pension was started.

 

[CorkHome2022]

I was giving same more thought , there is a sting in the tail.
1 I expect the Govt to appeal the ruling due to cost implications to the states finances .
2 Emergency legislation to overrule the Judgement.
3 In a pay deal with the Public Sector about 10 years ago the Pension Levy or ASC as its called now , no longer was charged on overtime payments but only on pensionable pay , there would be a liability on all public sector workers to have this "under payment " recouped if this judgement is left to stand .
I expect this will rumble on for quite some time yet .

 

[Towger]

It will be hard for the government to appeal this. MFF is based on Gross Pay and the anti MFF avoidance legislation is all based on Company Pension contribution rate vs Gross Pay. The reality is Pensions are now being being forced to be based on Gross Pay.

 

[faketales]

The reality is Pensions are now being being forced to be based on Gross Pay.

Is this a general direction?

My company only pays on base, not on bonus or acting pay.

They tell us it’s not a bonus it is the performance related element of our pay.

It just seems like a way for them not to pay pensions on 10% or so of salary as a large percentage of the workforce get a standard percent “bonus”.

Although they are well above minimum contribution.