A challenge by 19 contract cleaning companies to new regulations allowing for the payment of overtime to part-time cleaning workers was rejected by the High Court yesterday.
Mr Justice Kearns ruled that the delay by the companies in bringing the judicial review challenge was "fatal" to their case.
He found it impossible to conceive of any lesser requirement for urgency in bringing proceedings in a case which involved orders of the Labour Court regulating the conditions of employment, including overtime rates, of some 18,000 workers engaged in the contract cleaning sector.
The work practices of all sectors of the industry had been adapted to conform with the orders as and from January 1st, 2004, he said. It was not difficult to imagine the practical difficulties and frictions which might arise should the court intervene at this later point in a matter relating to the regulation of industrial relations, conditions and pay.
The application was made to the court on December 15th last which was almost a full five months after the making of the relevant two Employment Regulation Orders (EROs) by the Labour Court, the judge noted. The application was also brought more than five months after the companies had first threatened judicial review proceedings.
The two EROs, dated July 28th, 2003, provide for minimum rates of remuneration and conditions of employment for workers employed in the contract cleaning sector.
The judge said that "contract cleaning" in this context meant the cleaning of premises by companies engaged in whole or in part in the provision of cleaning and janitorial services in establishments such as hospitals, offices, shops, factories, stores or similar establishments on a contract basis.
While two orders were made on July 28th, 2003, one related to operations in Dublin and the second to the rest of the country, the same point of legal challenge arose in relation to both.
The companies had argued that, insofar as the orders provided for overtime to be paid to part-time workers after completion of their "contract hours" if that period was less than 39 hours (the normal hours worked by full-time workers), the orders discriminated against full-time workers in an unreasonable, oppressive and arbitrary manner.