In 1997, the Labour Court recommended that eight Control Room Attendants at Merck Sharp & Dohme (Ireland) accept the company's lump-sum offer in a dispute over upgrading. The Services Industrial Professional Technical Union sought a joint job evaluation, while the company relied on a Hay Management Consultants assessment that the grade was correct. The Court said employees could have been more involved in evaluating the jobs but found no grounds to show they were incorrectly graded. The recommendation was dated 10 February 1997.