Six Swissport ground crew at Dublin Airport lose claims over lay-offs

Six Swissport ground crew at Dublin Airport have lost their claims over being placed on lay-off when the aviation industry went into a tailspin at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Alan English, Shay O’Hare, Tony O’Neill, Stephen Kavanagh, Robert Keogh and Phillip Kelly all lodged complaints under the Payment of Wages Act against Swissport Ireland Ltd. They alleged the company unfairly selected them for lay-off without pay when the pandemic hit, while leaving other workers with less service on the job.

The workers, who are mostly at the grade of senior ramp operative but include airline co-ordinators, a baggage hall supervisor and a fueller, have long service at the firm, in excess of two decades in most cases. They were among 546 of Swissport’s 650 employees placed on lay-off in March 2020, the Workplace Relations Commission was told.

Terry Gill, a company executive, told the tribunal that its business was “suddenly and detrimentally affected by severe uncertainty as a result of the slowdown in flight patterns and numbers”.

“The company had to act,” he said. “Our priority was to retain team leads for big contracts as well as a skills matrix.” He also said workers who could provide some flexibility in their hours were also prioritised.

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The skills matrix document prepared by HR officers in the company was challenged at the hearing by the workers’ representative, employment relations consultant Dermot O’Loughlin. He argued that workers’ service had been a factor in selection for lay-off in other Irish airports where Swissport operated, but had not been part of considerations during the lay-offs at the Dublin Airport operation.

“There was no consultation about the criteria that would be applied to lay off staff and to decide who would stay,” he said.

He said the trade union Siptu, which was not involved in the set of claims, had believed locally that the lay-offs would only go on for a short time.

“The matrix applied by the company was deficient and contained a huge number of errors that clearly led to prejudice concerning selection,” he said.

Mr Gill said the skills matrix “was not the deciding factor” in the lay-offs and the knowledge of individual managers was also a factor in the selection process. He said the company had acted “fairly and reasonably” in the circumstances. He said the claims before the WRC were not representative of the views of most of the rest of the company’s staff and added that the main trade union at the company, Siptu, was not involved in bringing them. Just 67 workers were maintained on reduced hours of 28 hours a week, he said.

Ibec employer relations executive Ciaran Loughran said each of the complainants had been asked to return to work in November 2021, but “continuously declined”.

In six parallel decisions published by the WRC on Friday, adjudicating officer Brian Dalton wrote that the complainants’ refusal to return to work was “based on a premise that until the company could fully honour [their] contract terms [they were] not bound to return to work”.

“That is an argument with little merit nor does it reflect what is contractually the case,” he wrote.

Mr O’Hare, Mr Kelly and Mr Keogh had also progressed claims under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, raising the question of whether Swissport had the right to place them on lay-off. He wrote that the HR manager in charge of the lay-offs had the right to impose them and acted reasonably in doing so in each of the cases, and found the employees’ positions “not credible”.

There were no monies properly payable to any of the six workers which had been unlawfully deducted, Mr Dalton added.

Mr Kelly, Mr English and Mr O’Hare also progressed other claims under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act. This was on the basis that when each sought a copy of his contract, which the company said contained such a clause, the company had failed to provide one.

Mr Dalton found these claims were “opportunistic rather than based on merit” as the complaints of Mr Kelly and Mr English relied on Swissport’s “inability” to find their individual contracts with that clause”. While the company had been unable to find Mr O’Hare’s 1998 employment contract, it later turned up and was provided to the complainant, Mr Dalton noted. It included a clause covering lay-off and short-time working, the WRC was told.

Mr Dalton found that this corroborated Swissport’s position “that the lay-off term was a standard clause in employment contracts”.

He dismissed the Terms of Employment complaints as well.