The Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996

Exemption orders

67.—(1) Where—

(a) at any time there is in force a collective agreement, or an agricultural wages order, under which employees to whom the agreement or order relates have a right to guaranteed remuneration, and

(b) on the application of all the parties to the agreement, or of the Agricultural Wages Board for Northern Ireland, the appropriate Department (having regard to the provisions of the agreement or order) is satisfied that Article 60 should not apply to those employees,

it may make an order under this Article excluding those employees from the operation of that Article.

(2) In this Article “agricultural wages order” means an order made under Article 4 of the [1977 NI 22.] Agricultural Wages (Northern Ireland) Order 1977.

(3) In paragraph (1) “the appropriate Department” means—

(a) in relation to a collective agreement, the Department, and

(b) in relation to an agricultural wages order, the Department of Agriculture.

(4) The Department shall not make an order under this Article in respect of an agreement unless—

(a) the agreement provides for procedures to be followed (whether by arbitration or otherwise) in cases where an employee claims that his employer has failed to pay the whole or any part of any guaranteed remuneration to which the employee is entitled under the agreement and those procedures include a right to arbitration or adjudication by an independent referee or body in cases where (by reason of an equality of votes or otherwise) a decision cannot otherwise be reached, or

(b) the agreement indicates that an employee to whom the agreement relates may present a complaint to an industrial tribunal that his employer has failed to pay the whole or any part of any guaranteed remuneration to which the employee is entitled under the agreement.

(5) Where an order under this Article is in force in respect of an agreement indicating as described in sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph (4) an industrial tribunal shall have jurisdiction over a complaint such as is mentioned in that sub-paragraph as if it were a complaint falling within Article 66.

(6) An order varying or revoking an earlier order under this Article may be made in pursuance of an application by all or any of the parties to the agreement in question, or the Agricultural Wages Board for Northern Ireland, or in the absence of such an application.