The Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) is to consider appealing a Labour Court ruling which rejected its claim for equal pay for clerical staff carrying out similar administrative work as gardaí.
The union's general secretary Blair Horan said last night that he would be recommending to his executive, when it met later this month, that it should appeal the Labour Court decision to the High Court.
The Government said last week that the Labour Court ruling would clear the way for an acceleration of a programme to recruit civilian Garda support staff.
It said that if the union had won it could have cost the State hundreds of millions of euros.
The union had lodged more than 7,000 follow-on claims with the Equality Tribunal which the Government believed could have cost the State €300 million in back money and €100 million per annum on an ongoing basis.
Mr Horan described the Labour Court decision as "a setback". However, the union had suffered setbacks before and had gone on to win the overall case.
He said that in 2003 the union had won €36 million for members in the High Court in an equality case which had initially been rejected. He had always expected that if the State had lost in the Labour Court that it would take the matter to the civil courts.
Among the grounds on which the union would consider appealing the case is its view that the Labour Court had accepted the need for gardaí to do some clerical work for operational reasons. The union maintained that test for this adopted by the Labour Court was not in keeping with European case law.
The Labour Court case involved 14 civilian clerical officers employed by the Garda to carry out administrative work.
The staff claimed that because they were performing the same tasks as gardaí filling administrative posts, they should be paid the same. They initially won their claim at the Equality Tribunal in 2005. However, the Department of Justice appealed the decision to the Labour Court.
The CPSU case was brought on gender grounds. It pointed out most gardaí doing administrative duties were men and most civilian administrators were women. It said Garda members were unfairly being paid more than the civilian workers despite performing the same duties.
However, the Department of Justice and the Garda said the disparity in pay was not gender-based but rather was based on Garda members being entitled to higher rates by virtue of their membership of An Garda Síochána.
Both contended that gardaí were needed to fill some administrative posts which required a specialist knowledge and experience of front-line policing.
The Labour Court accepted the evidence that the disparity on pay was based on the grounds put forward by the Department of Justice rather than on gender. It granted the appeal.