Sunday pay rate advice please and advice on job

TaraHewitt

K

Subutai

TaraHewitt wrote: »

My work contract says "Please note that the company has taken account of Sunday working within your basic rate of pay, which includes additional benefit for same. (Hourly paid staff only)". Can anyone explain to me how a €10 hourly rate includes a benefit for Sunday hours worked? In all seriousness please. .

Just at the outset, until you're there a year you have no effective protection against unfair dismissal. That should feed into your consideration of what you can actually do.

I haven't considered anything in relation to how shifts are handed out.

It used to be considered that an employer had to state how the Sunday premium was calculated. However in October the High Court ruled in Trinity Leisure Holdings Limited Trading as Trinity City Hotel v. Sofia Kolesnik and Natalia Alfimova that an express statement in a contract of employment that working on Sundays was taken into account in the setting of an employee's pay discharged that employer's Sunday work obligation. They do not have to identify what part of the pay relates to Sunday working.

In your case they've done the equivalent of paying you €10.78 on a Sunday, but rolled that into base pay. That is, they've spread a 10% Sunday premium out across the five days. This results in a 2% increase to pay above the minimum rate of €9.80, which is €10.

So, basically, your Sunday premium is 10%. I would suggest that this is almost certainly inadequate. Under s 14 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, a Sunday premium must be: "of such an amount as is reasonable having regard to all the circumstances".

Reasonable isn't defined in statute. Case law provides the guide. The Labour Court have a few times said that the premium should be 33%, for example: https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2015/february/dwt159.html

That's not an absolute rule. The Labour Court have found Sunday premia as low as 25% and even 14% to be reasonable with regard to all the circumstances.

10% is probably way too low unless there are some very special circumstances. It probably should be up at 25%. That would, if rolled into basic pay, mean your hourly wage should be €10.29.

Mrs OBumble

You are a part timer. Part timers are kept on to work the times that the full timers don't want.