Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

For the proposed new employment rights and industrial relations machinery to work, as I stated before the break, we need improved and strengthened legislation in the area of workers' rights. This includes dealing with rogue employers who refuse to pay wages and refuse to comply with awards and decisions made by the industrial relations machinery; dealing with employers hiding behind shelf companies; and dealing with the completely unacceptable situation highlighted in Greyhound, where an employer can just change somebody's contract and tell them to sign it or go, which led those workers to being locked out. We need improved legislation strengthening workers' rights in these situations.

Another important area, which has been raised with the Minister a few times, is highlighted in the Rhatigan dispute, which has led workers to be locked out for six weeks, two of whom who have been occupying a crane for the past few days.

3 o’clock

They are alleging - frankly, I believe them - rampant abuse of the subcontracting system, the so-called RCT1 system. The Minister may not be fully acquainted with this. I talked to one of the workers involved. He says that, along with a number of other bricklayers, he was employed by JJ Rhatigan. Believing they were employees of JJ Rhatigan, five weeks later they had not been paid anything. When they protested about this, some money appeared in the bank account of one of these people which amounted to all of the workers getting €100 per week for the five weeks they had worked.

When he questioned what the hell was going on, he was told he was a subcontractor. He said, "What? I'm not a subcontractor. I'm not employing these guys. We're just individual bricklayers who've been working for you for five weeks and believed we were employed by you. You're now telling us we're subcontractors." This bricklayer told me that he is not a subcontractor, has never been a subcontractor and does not want to be a subcontractor. This is a flagrant abuse of the RTC system. I have heard umpteen allegations of this kind of activity by big contractors. They then wash their hands and say they are not their employees even though they know quite well that these people have been brought in and essentially falsely described and categorised as subcontractors. That sort of thing is not on.

Those workers should not be sitting outside that building site, which is a public-contract building site for a school with public money going into it with this sort of carry on going on. What will be done to investigate this activity which is rampant and has led to industrial disputes and will lead to more? As the construction sector picks up, will the Government take action and introduce necessary legislation to deal with this rampant abuse of the subcontracting system? Streamlining the industrial relations machinery will mean nothing if we do not strengthen the rights in legislation of workers to prevent these sorts of abuses and create a level playing field, which, at the moment, is heavily tilted in favour of employers, quite a few of whom then engage in rogue behaviour.

There are serious problems with what is in the legislation. First, the potential for the adjudicator to dismiss frivolous claims is unacceptable and may even breach the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. As the professor of law in NUI Maynooth pointed out, people have the right to have their grievances heard and the idea that they can be dismissed as frivolous by a civil servant is not acceptable.

Second, the initial hearings with the adjudicators should be public and not private because public hearings act as a deterrent to rogue or delinquent employers and put pressure on them to treat workers properly. If these things go on behind closed doors, there is a problem.

Third, a single adjudicator at the proposed Workplace Relations Commission is not good enough. As I understand it, almost all sides of the industrial relations divide - lawyers, workers' representatives and employers' representatives - believe the tripartite system, where there is somebody representing workers, somebody representing employers and somebody who is a legal expert making an adjudication, is far more favourable than having one person, probably not qualified, making these adjudications. As Michael Doherty, professor of law in NUI Maynooth, has said, a single adjudicator seems to be motivated more by cost-saving requirements rather than trying to come up with a fair, equitable and efficient system.

The legislation still gives the Minister the right to impose fees. There should be absolutely no question of fees. The provision for fixed-penalty notices of €150 is a joke. This will be the soft option for employers and allow them to avoid properly dealing with grievances, complaints and problems brought up by employees.

See this speech in context