A hospital chaplain who found out he was meant to be paid double time for working Sunday shifts after nearly a quarter of a century walking the wards has been awarded €2,600 in compensation for a breach of his employment rights.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) in Dublin was in breach of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 in its failure to pay a Sunday premium to Rev Liam Cuffe, who has been chaplain to the hospital since 1999.
The Fórsa trade union, appearing for Rev Cuffe, told the tribunal its client earned €5,431 a month in the post, which involved giving end-of-life spiritual support to patients as well as other duties. Although the contract of employment required the chaplain to work weekends, it was “silent in relation to the provision for Sunday premium”, the union submitted.
The Fórsa representative pointed to a HSE guidance document on terms and conditions of employment in the health service which addressed Sunday work. This stated: “An employee who works a ‘5 over 7′ roster [five days in a weeklong period] and is scheduled to work on Sunday is entitled to single time extra for each hour worked.”
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Rev Cuffe wrote to the hospital management in June 2022 looking for clarification on various allowances, including Sunday premium pay.
His Fórsa rep said there had been a “lengthy engagement process” culminating in his client being told it had been “decided” after correspondence with the HSE that chaplains would “get single time extra”, or double time, for Sundays, starting on November 6th, 2023.
The hospital’s position was that the Sunday premium had been paid to the complainant since that date in “good faith” and there was “no pre-existing contractual entitlement” to it. The extra pay had been provided for out of the hospital’s own funds rather than the HSE funding, which usually covered payroll, a representative of employers’ group Ibec, appearing for the hospital, submitted.
A HSE circular addressing the provision of a chaplaincy service stated that it “shall include nights and weekends” and stated that “overtime is not payable”, it was submitted. The language of the circular was “mirrored” in contracts signed by Rev Cuffe in 2001 and 2006, it was further submitted.
The Ibec representative argued that the clause “naturally included Sundays” and that a premium had been “incorporated into his contractual salary”.
Adjudicator Aideen Collard wrote that it was “incumbent” on the employer to make sure the chaplain was paid according to his contractual and statutory entitlements, but that it had been “guided by the HSE” in this regard.
She wrote that, as the hospital started paying the Sunday premium after receiving guidance that a premium “may fall to be paid”, she could not accept the contention that it had been a “good faith” payment and did not “constitute acknowledgment of a pre-existing contractual entitlement”.
Citing a contravention of Section 14 of the Act, she directed St Vincent’s University Hospital to pay Rev Cuffe €2,627 for the breach.
Ms Collard wrote that she considered it “just and equitable” to limit the compensation to the priest’s economic loss in the six months up to November 6th 2023, when he lodged his statutory complaint.
This was because there had been a “lack of legal certainty” about the contractual provision for Sunday premium, because the issue was not raised with the employer earlier than 2022, and because payments began as soon as the entitlement was confirmed, she wrote.
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