Business

ESB technicians claim overtime pay ‘deliberately’ held up over app refusal

Union says workers left without pay running in some cases to thousands of euro

The Independent Workers’ Union has lodged pay claims with the Workplace Relations Commission. Photograph: Alan Betson

Stephen Bourke
Thu Jul 14 2022 - 16:08

A group of 184 ESB network technicians claim thousands of euro in overtime due to them before last Christmas was “deliberately” held up as a penalty for not signing up to a new timekeeping app.

The Independent Workers’ Union (IWU) has lodged pay claims with the Workplace Relations Commission over the payroll delays, saying 184 of its members were owed hundreds or thousands of euro each.

The union said in pleadings the complainants lost an average of €800 per week, with the arrears building to €15,000 for the worst-affected, but conceded the situation had improved since.

“Other workers would set a light to the blooming place,” IWU industrial relations adviser John Keenan said.

READ MORE

ESB Networks denies the claims and says the complaints are now “moot” because the test case workers have been paid everything they were owed at the time they lodged their complaints.

Ten test cases were selected for a Workplace Relations Commission adjudication on the matter, with the last, that of north Dublin-based network technician Stephen Darling, heard on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr Darling said that after using the MyTime app under protest from April 2021 on, he switched back to submitting paper payslips in November that year when the first ballot on a new industrial agreement was “shot down”.

He said the use of the app was one of the terms of the deal, which was finally approved in March 2022.

In all, 236 of the 1,500 network technicians employed by ESB networks did the same, the WRC was told.

“The ballot in favour of the agreement was a majority of 336 in circumstances were there were 432 IWU members. It’s the elephant in the room,” Mr Keenan said.

Lorna Lynch SC, for ESB Networks, said the use of the app was a work practice and not part of the complainants’ terms of employment.

Mr Darling said payments were now being included in his pay, but that his payslips were unclear. “I don’t know what I’m given. Stuff is coming and I don’t know what it’s for,” he said.

ESB HR officer Darragh Horan gave evidence in June that the payroll office in Galway was unable to process more than 120-130 paper time sheets a week, and that a backlog had built up.

He said the company had opted not to renew the software licence for a specialist scanner in the first quarter of the year and disposed of the machine — and that the time sheets then had to be processed manually.

“We don’t want to see people waiting on overtime payments, but ultimately these guys have made the decision not to use the MyTime system,” he said.

He added that the number refusing to use the app was now down to 185.

The other test cases selected were complaints by fellow network technicians Sean Meyler, Liam O’Grady, Gerard Tuohy, Oisín Mahon, Greg Victory, Des Summerville, Michael Dolan, Brian Baitson and Shane Flynn.

LATEST STORIES