The Labour Court Annual Report for 2008, published on Thursday, says referrals to each of the four Irish State bodies - - the Labour Court; the Labour Relations Commission Conciliation Service; the Rights Commissioner Service and the Employment Appeals Tribunal - - involved in the resolution of workplace disputes rose in 2008: the total of 18,853 for all four bodies that year represented an increase of 30% on the 2007 level.

Chairman of the Court, Kevin Duffy said: “From a situation where disputes coming to the Court were, in the main, about sharing the fruits of success, over recent months they are more likely to be about influencing the effects of the economic downturn on workers and their employers."

Duffy said “while It is inevitable that the rapidly-changing national economic situation will impact on the work of the State’s employment dispute resolution agencies into the mid-term future, this increase may not be entirely attributable to the country’s changed economic circumstances.”

The report shows that the overall number of cases referred to the Court in 2008 showed an increase of about 28% over the number for 2007. The main factor in this was a rise (from 198 to 355) in the number of complaints alleging breaches of Registered Employment Agreements. “The level of such complaints has fluctuated to a considerable degree over recent years, and in 2008 accounted for 30% of all cases coming to the Court,” said Duffy.

On the work of the Court generally, the Chairman said that there was a continuation in 2008 of the shift in the profile of the Court’s work from the resolution of "industrial relations’ issues to the determination of complaints of breaches of statutory employment rights." Referrals under various employment rights statutes now accounted for 25% of the cases coming to the Court and Duffy said that the significance of this shift was more than purely statistical. “Not alone are such cases generally far more time-consuming than industrial relations cases, often raising significant issues of both domestic and European law, but the Court has also been required to adapt its procedures in these cases so as to reflect the legal principles inherent in the determination of legal rights and responsibilities,” he added.

The link on this page of the LC site should be updated today to access the Annual Report.