A journalist with an “extraordinary sense of entitlement and a huge sense of self-importance” is already “well compensated” for his on-air work, a tribunal has decided.
A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator made the remark after deciding against all aspects of an industrial dispute raised by the journalist against his employer – referred to only as “a broadcaster” – under the Industrial Relations Act 1969.
The worker, who was earning some €84,630 a year as a multimedia journalist with an additional allowance for duties as chief subeditor, was not named.
He had claimed that because he was on-air doing “newscasting” work, he ought to be promoted to either a newscaster, or an assistant editor. He also contended he was “entitled to additional compensation” for his work on a particular project he had been involved with since 2010.
The journalist said he had received verbal promises from the broadcaster’s director of news in 2009 that he would be “appropriately rewarded” for his work before beginning work on the project the following year, the tribunal noted.
The broadcaster denied that any promises were made to the worker – and said the project had been a “team effort” anyway.
Its position was that the journalist was, and still is, compensated for that work. That was because two allowances had been made pensionable in connection with the work – improving the value of the journalist’s pension pot by some €100,000, the WRC was told.
The worker took the position that €100,000 was “insufficient”, the WRC noted.
The journalist had also taken the position that because he carried out duties as a newscaster, he ought to be reclassified as at a higher grade, either as a newscaster or as an assistant editor.
The employer countered that the worker’s grade, “multimedia journalist”, included the reading of radio bulletins as a job requirement. Other workers employed at that grade did nothing other than read radio bulletins while working to a roster, the WRC was told.
The job of a newscaster were “entirely different to the multimedia journalist grade” and involved “different skills and challenges”, the broadcaster argued.
In his decision, adjudicator Breffni O’Neill wrote: “It is clear that the worker in the instant dispute has an extraordinary sense of entitlement and a huge sense of self-importance both in respect of the work he did on the project and the work he does as a multimedia journalist,” he said.
Mr O’Neill wrote that the move by the employer to incur a cost of €100,000 making certain allowances pensionable, meant the journalist was “more than adequately compensated for his work on the project”.
The adjudicator noted that other multimedia journalists “willingly undertake” the newscasting work the journalist had claimed justified a promotion. Mr O’Neill wrote that the claimant was “already being well compensated at his current grade”.
His conclusion was that he could not decide in favour of the journalist on either aspect of the dispute.
Mr O’Neill added: “I recommend both that the worker carefully reflects on my analysis above and recognises, as well as accepts both that he has been compensated more than appropriately.”
The broadcaster was represented by Barry Walsh of Fieldfisher LLP in the matter. Frank Drumm BL appeared for the worker.
Neither the claimant nor the respondent were named in the decision, following the WRC’s usual practice for such complaints, which must be heard in private by law.
Disputes under the Industrial Relations Act 1969 are handled by WRC adjudicators in a form of statutory-backed workplace arbitration, into which parties enter voluntarily.
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