Cleaners want order on overtime quashed

The "real agenda" of several contract cleaning companies in resisting new regulations is to avoid paying overtime to workers, the High Court was told yesterday.

Mr James Connolly SC, for the Labour Court, was opposing a challenge by 19 contract cleaning companies to regulations allowing for the payment of overtime to full-time and part-time cleaning workers.

The regulations, due to come into effect on January 1st, provide for overtime to be paid to full-time cleaners who work beyond their 39 hours a week and to part-time cleaners who work longer than the hours for which they have been contracted.

The companies claim the regulations will mean significant extra costs. They argue the regulations are unfair, unreasonable and in breach of equality provisions in that they discriminate in favour of women, because most part-time cleaners are women while most full-time cleaners are men.

Opening the case, Mr Frank Callanan SC, for the companies, said he was seeking orders and declarations quashing the new measures. In reply to Mr Justice Kearns, he said the measures would impose significant extra costs on his clients.

The companies are seeking a declaration that part V of the Employment Regulation Order of July 2003, relating to the payment of overtime to workers in the contract cleaning services, is unreasonable, unfair, null and void and of no effect. They want the order quashed.

They also claim the procedures adopted by the Joint Labour Committees, which addressed the issue of overtime and formulated proposals to the Labour Court, were unreasonable and oppressive or arbitrary and capricious.

They further argue that the decision of the Labour Court to submit amended proposals to the Joint Labour Committees was unreasonable and oppressive, and that the decision of the Labour Court to make employment regulation orders giving effect to the resubmitted proposals was in breach of fair procedures and natural justice. They argue they were entitled to an oral hearing.

Opposing the challenge, Mr Connolly said the Labour Court had adequate information on which to base the regulations and acted fairly and reasonably.

He argued this was a not a case of comparing like with like. The reality was that part-time workers were in a more vulnerable position than their full-time counterparts and had less security. All the measures provided for was that full-time workers would receive the same payment as part-time workers for the core hours each worked, and when either part- or full-time workers worked outside those core hours they would also receive similar payment.

He argued there was no statutory requirement for the Labour Court to provide an oral hearing to the companies. What the companies were seeking to do in judicial review proceedings was to have the High Court reach a different decision than the Labour Court, and the High Court was precluded from doing so unless it concluded the Labour Court did not have adequate information on which to base its decision.