'Quick food' alliance to challenge pay rates

UP TO 170 businesses in the “quick food” sector will take a joint constitutional challenge to requirements that they pay staff double time on Sundays and special occasions such as public holidays.

The Quick Food Service Alliance which includes multiples Supermac’s, Bagel Factory, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway and Abrakebabra is challenging the right of the catering industry’s Joint Labour Committee (JLC) to set rates of pay for their employees.

While the alliance acknow-ledged the JLC has been charged with formulating wage rates since the 1970s, it said double time was never applied to the “quick serve” section of the catering industry, until late last year. It said from that time it faced a cost increase in the order of 20 per cent.

The alliance maintains the Oireachtas is the only body qualified under the Constitution to make laws and the JLC simply does not have the power to set minimum rates of pay and employment conditions for workers.

Speaking at the launch of the legal challenge yesterday, alliance chairman John Grace of Cork said raising prices was not an option and the extra costs would lead to closures and job losses. He said the existence of the minimum wage “and 25 other pieces of legislation protecting workers’ rights” meant there was no need for the JLC.

Jacinta Green human resources manager at Supermac’s said workers were already paid extra, at time-and-a-quarter to time-and- a-half, for working anti-social hours, but the regulations were in such disarray that the company was required to pay double time for Sunday work in Dublin, but not outside Dublin. This meant costs were higher in the company’s O’Connell Street branch, than in Maynooth.

Gerry Grimes of Subway said anti-social hours were already being worked in other industries such as garden centres but these industries were not afflicted by the decisions of the JLC.

The alliance said the regulations did not apply to take-aways, and at the formation of the JLC 30 years ago the quick service sector did not exist. Employers were then represented by the more formal restaurant sector where formal training existed.

Mr Grace said employees in the quick service industry were not subject to formal training and “do not wait on tables, set tables, silver service, wash-up ware or cutlery, or need chef training as systems are automated”.

But the proposed challenge was swiftly criticised by Siptu yesterday which described the alliance as a group of “fast buck outlets using the legal challenge to avoid paying employees the set rates”.

“The Quick Service Food Alliance shows a brazen disregard for the facts and fair play in its attack on the employment rights of workers”, Siptu national industrial secretary Gerry McCormack said.