Analysis:Employers will carefully examine the outcome of the hotel workers case, writes Martin Wall
Discussions on new minimum pay rates and working conditions for 25,000 hotel workers will have to begin again as a result of yesterday's development in the High Court.
Pay rates in the hotel sector for workers outside Dublin and Cork are set by a joint labour committee, made up of union and management representatives.
The committee considers the matter and then makes a recommendation to the Labour Court, which in turn publishes an employment rights order giving legal effect to minimum rates and conditions.
In essence there were two legs to the case brought by the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) and Co Clare hotelier Michael Vaughan.
They had alleged that the procedures used by the joint labour committee in the hotel sector and the Labour Court last year were unfair. They had also challenged the constitutionality of the legal basis under which the order had been made.
If this constitutional challenge had been upheld it would have had serious implications for about 250,000 workers in sectors such as hairdressing and contract cleaning where wages and conditions are fixed under the same industrial relations laws.
In the case yesterday the State conceded on procedural grounds because an important document on the impact of wage rises in the hotel sector had not been submitted to the Labour Court. The constitutional issues raised by the IHF were not addressed.
In other sectors it is now likely that employers will be carefully examining whether the correct procedures for issuing employment rights orders have been followed.
It is also possible that the issue of the constitutionality of the current system - which was raised but not dealt with - will be taken up by some other employer in the future.