Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We are on the cusp of seeing a significant reopening of society and the economy this Monday. Obviously, this is a very exciting development in the context of the pandemic. However, we have no guidance as to when dance, drama or music classes can recommence. I ask that the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, be written to in order to produce that guidance. I do not need to repeat to the House how serious it is for dance, music and drama schools across the country and for their teachers with the lack of in-person classes. These classes have been suspended since the introduction of level 3 restrictions, which go back for the whole country to last October, and for those in Donegal and Dublin to even before that.It seems we have in this country a very narrow view of or perspective on what is essential education. These classes are vital to the growth, development and mental health of children. That is before we even start talking about needing to feed the creative element in their lives. We need to see the guidance as soon as possible.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that No. 10, the Protection of Employment (Platform Workers and Bogus Self-Employment) Bill 2021, be taken before No. 1. In recent years, we have seen the growth of platform work throughout Europe and the world, including in this country. While food delivery cyclists have very much been the public face of platform work, we know it exists in many other sectors such as media, content production, graphic design, web maintenance and a whole host of others. We have reached the stage that we now need to regulate and recognise platform work as a form of work in this country.

The Labour Party view is that while we should not make all work standard, we need to make all work decent. At the heart of platform work in this country and elsewhere is an enormous imbalance in the power between platforms and workers in terms of how pay is set and the ability of platforms to be able to hire and fire at will. In addition, there is no access to information on how the algorithms manage and pay workers. It is not acceptable in 21st century Ireland that workers are forced to work below the national minimum wage and in what I consider to be bogus self-employment. This means they are unable to access the protections of the State because they are engaged in this type of work. That is why we are introducing this Bill.

The Bill seeks to do three things: regulate and recognise platform work in our labour code; stamp out bogus self-employment, which is why we have a provision for a presumption of employee status for all workers; and change the balance of power between platforms and workers so workers can access information about the algorithms that manage their performance and how work is offered to them.

I recognise many Senators are very concerned about this issue. Considerable work has been done on this by members of other parties, which is to be very much welcomed. I hope we can bring forward this Bill and have a debate in the House on it.