ROBUST INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL WILL ENSURE REGISTERED AGREEMENTS AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING - KENNY

Posted on June 11, 2015 2:56 PM   |   Permanent Link   

Speaking on the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015

I am very happy indeed to see the introduction to the House of this legislation. I have been quite concerned over the past couple of years at the lack of a statutory framework to ensure that workers seeking to improve their terms and conditions can do so, whether they seek to engage in collective bargaining or through a Registered Employment Agreement, the latter being particularly important given that the Supreme Court struck down the old Registered Employment Agreement framework on constitutional grounds. I am glad that the Government is moving to deal with this after working hard to ensure that the new Registered Employment Agreement framework is constitutionally robust.
The Bill makes provision for the registration of employment agreements between employers and trade unions governing remuneration and conditions of employment. The content of these agreements will be a matter for the contracting parties and they will be legally binding on those parties.

The Bill also makes provision for a new type of Ministerial Order, the Sectoral Employment Order, which allows the Labour Court to trigger a review of pay and conditions of a particular sector of industry and to make a recommendation to the Minister. Such a review can be initiated at the request, separately or jointly, of organisations substantially representative of employers and/or of workers.

The SEO will be made where the Minister is satisfied that the process provided for in the new legislation has been complied with by the Labour Court and the SEO will be binding for all members and employers in the sector to which it relates, and it will be fully enforceable.

There is broad acceptance that the re-introduction of the Registered Employment Agreement will benefit both workers and their employers. For workers and employers, these agreements and orders will provide certainty around what pay and conditions will be into the future and as well as this, the will provide industrial peace - and in a recovering economy, this is very important.

I am also especially pleased about Part 3 of the legislation, which fulfils a significant commitment in the Programme for Government - to make sure that Irish law is consistent with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights by providing a clear and balanced mechanism by which the fairness of the employment conditions of workers in their totality can be assessed where there is no collective bargaining in the workplace.

This legislation removes the right of access of what are called "excepted bodies" to procedures dealing with collective bargaining legislation. An "excepted body" is the term used in the Trade Union Acts to describe a body such as an in-house works committee or the like, that is not a registered trade union and that conducts negotiations on pay and conditions only for the staff of one employer. Since the decision of the Supreme Court in Iarnród Éireann v Holbrooke, it is now clear that a body cannot be an excepted body within the meaning of the Trade Union Act 1941 unless it actually conducts consensual negotiations with an employer. So, if there is a genuine excepted body in operation, that means that there is genuine collective bargaining going on. The point of all this is to ensure that a body that is an in-house committee or similar, and that is merely serving as window dressing to give the pretence of collective bargaining, is not allowed to avail of the legislation. That is why there is provision, in Section 24 of the legislation, to fully investigate as to whether this is the case. There must be genuine engagement, with consent, between the workers and the employer.

It is also important to point out that that this legislation is only about providing a remedy where there is no collective bargaining, a fundamental reason for invoking this Act must be the absence of collective bargaining negotiations. That prerequisite cannot be satisfied where there is a genuinely functioning excepted body. If there is no consent, then the legislation under this Bill and the Act will be invoked.

Section 24 inserts a new subsection into the Principal Act to give practical effect to the principle of the independence of an "excepted body". It gives guidance to the Labour Court as to the criteria it should take into account in determining whether an excepted body is engaged in collective bargaining and is genuinely independent of the employer.

Section 24 also amends the Principal Act by providing that where an employer asserts to the Labour Court that it is his or her practice to engage in collective bargaining with an excepted body in respect of the workers concerned, it will be for the employer to satisfy the Labour Court on this.

The Government has decided, as a matter of policy, that it would be preferable for the workers involved in a dispute under this Act not to be required to make themselves known to their employer early in the process if possible, so as to avoid any potential for victimisation. The new section provides that a statutory declaration made by the chief officer of the trade union concerned, setting out the number of its members and period of membership in the grade, group, or category to which the trade dispute refers and who are party to the trade dispute, shall be admissible in evidence without further proof unless the contrary is shown. However, where the employer asks that the matters specified in the declaration be examined, the Labour Court shall satisfy itself that these are indeed correct.

I believe the Bill, in its totality, represents a significant step forward for workers and employers. It provides a clear, workable and constitutionally robust framework within which workers' remuneration and conditions of employment can be discussed and determined. I know of cases where this legislation would have helped and supported workers who were horribly victimised because they were trade unionists who sought to bargain collectively in their workplaces, and those workplaces were very unfair places. Because this legislation did not exist at the time, these workers were bullied into silence, made redundant under spurious circumstances, or constructively dismissed. I am extremely proud to support this legislation, which has been desired by my Party for many years, and which is finally now to be fulfilled.

I am confident that this framework will fit Ireland's constitutional, social and economic traditions and its international obligations and, very importantly, will ensure continued success in creating jobs and attracting investment into the economy.

I warmly commend the Bill to the House.