In 1998, the Labour Court recommended that Boart Longyear Limited review its sick-pay scheme in June and then negotiate possible changes with the Services Industrial Professional Technical Union. The dispute concerned sick pay for hourly-paid workers in the company’s Construction, Mining and Geotechnical division. The union sought improved sick-pay terms, including excluding work-related accident absences from the scheme’s absence calculation. The company said absence had risen to 4.6% in 1996 and argued that it needed to be controlled before benefits improved. The recommendation was dated 12 January 1998.