The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A trade union leader yesterday urged the Government to amend the Employment Act’s definition of ‘wages’ to bring it into line with the National Insurance Board (NIB).

Obie Ferguson, the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) president, told Tribune Business that while NIB was now incorporating tips and commissions into how it calculated due contributions, such income was excluded from the Employment Act definition of ‘basic pay’.

Describing this as “a major issue”, Mr Ferguson explained: “The Government has now introduced tips as part of the wage for NIB contributions.

“That makes a tremendous amount of sense, and the Government ought to be commended for doing that. I’d been trying to get that to happen for 10 years, and I could not persuade successive governments.”

The TUC president said all forms of commission-based income should be added to an employee’s base pay, and ought to “form the basis” for calculating benefits due to them - such as vacation pay, sick pay and maternity pay.

Calling on the Government to bring the Employment Act into conformity with how NIB contributions for commission-based workers were being calculated, Mr Ferguson told Tribune Business: “It will now require the Government to amend the Employment Act, because the Employment Act, when it defines pay, it’s inconsistent with NIB’s definition.

“Under the Employment Act, it comes up with basic pay and makes no provision for commissions, tips and gratuities. Those are excluded, and some persons work just on commissions.”

Mr Ferguson said he had argued this issue - that commissions formed part of the wage - on behalf of John Hanna, a former Imperial Life worker, in a case - where he was ultimately successful - that made it all the way to the Privy Council in London.

Elsewhere, the TUC president said he also had “a problem” with the overtime definition contained in the Employment Act.

Pointing out that employers were required to pay ‘double time’ to staff who worked overtime, Mr Ferguson said those who worked on a Public Holiday were also entitled to be paid for that day.

He argued that, in effect, employees who worked on Public Holidays were entitled to “triple pay” - pay for that day, and overtime ‘double pay’.

Mr Ferguson said only the Government, and companies where a union was involved, paid ‘triple pay’ to employees.

Pointing out that the private sector never did this, the TUC president said: “To me, that is a major problem, and we have to deal with that.

“That has been a problem and we really need to get some clarification from the courts on that in particular.”