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By Grainne Cunningham, Anne-Marie Walsh and Andrew Bushe
Monday December 15 2008
A SENIOR An Post manager has been awarded a bonus of €11,000 on top of his €95,000 salary, even though he only worked for 11 weeks of last year.
The manager was assigned to An Post's 'resource centre' in January 2007, an area known by post office employees as the "rubber room", where staff who are "surplus" to the company's needs are deployed.
The centre was dubbed the "rubber room" because "people were banging their heads off the walls because they were doing nothing", a union representative said.
General secretary of the Communications Workers Union Steve Fitzpatrick said the resource centre was a "waste of money" because managers had little to do but were assigned there following a restructuring of the company.
A spokeswoman for An Post said staff were placed in the resource centre if they had chosen not to avail of a "number of options" offered following the restructuring process.
She said it was "very atypical" for staff there to work just 11 weeks of the year and said they were encouraged to go on "various self-development courses" and skill-building training.
The spokeswoman could not confirm how many staff are based in the centre, which is believed to be located at College House, near Pearse Street, Dublin 2.
The existence of this 'elephant's graveyard' emerged after the manager took a case to the Labour Court, claiming he was entitled to a bonus of €15,192 for 2007 and not the €3,200 he received.
The court heard that he was based in the resource centre from January to October 2007 and was then assigned to An Post's "Strategy and Business Excellence Directorate".
"Staff are assigned to the resource centre when there is no work available for them," the court ruling stated.
An Post awarded him a bonus payment of 16pc of his salary, based only on the final 11 weeks of 2007 when he was based at the directorate, but he argued it should have been based on his full-year salary.
The manager, whose claim was backed by the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants, was offered an additional €7,486 ex-gratia payment by An Post in May in an effort to settle the claim but he turned it down and the issue went before a Labour Court hearing last month.
The union told the court that An Post had denied the manager "the opportunity to participate fully in the organisation by not providing him with work during the period January to October 2007 and thereby denying him the opportunity to earn his full bonus for the year".
It said he was available for work, that suitable work existed and he had made several requests for work.
An Post argued that "bonus payments are not an entitlement but are based on an assessment of actual performance and as such are at the discretion of the company" and said there was no contractual basis for the worker's claim when "he was surplus and only employed on effective work for 11 weeks of that year".
In a recommendation that has just become available, the court found the manager "was entitled to the full company performance bonus despite his assignment to the resource centre" but upheld An Post's decision to not pay the personal performance bonus for the period when he was not actively engaged.
Consequently, the Labour Court recommended that An Post's May "gesture of goodwill" additional bonus payment of almost €7,500 should be reoffered and "accepted in full and final settlement" of the manager's claim.
John Kelleher, Deputy General Secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants, which represented the manager, said he could not reveal his identify.
Downsizing
He said the individual in question was one of at least 20 managers who were identified as "surplus" to requirements during a downsizing programme at An Post around 2005.
Mr Kelleher said the majority of the managers wished to remain employed and were assigned to the resource centre, but many had since been redeployed.
- Grainne Cunningham, Anne-Marie Walsh and Andrew Bushe
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