David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This would apply to people who are on low hour contracts. In many companies we already have situations where rosters of workers' hours are displayed. We have it in many different workplaces. One of the concerns that has been raised was the impact that this would have on small employers, that if one employs fewer than five people, it might be difficult. I do not accept that but that was one of the concerns. Other people have raised concerns relating to larger employers. I do not believe it is unreasonable to ask an employer to give notice to workers of the hours that they do. One of the issues that was raised with us by the trade unions involved was that we have a situation where workers simply do not know what hours they are working from one week to the next.

We have also had evidence of exploitation presented to this committee and to other committees in the past by workers of some retail companies, stating that if workers request more hours or if they talk or raise issues about their terms and conditions of employment, they face a punitive sanction by their employer. One of those sanctions is that their hours could be cut. It is unreasonable that that is the case. It is reasonable that workers would know from week to week what their hours are. If people have concerns around how onerous they believe this might be for some employers then, again, I ask them to bring forward amendments to deal with some of the anomalies that they see, but the principle of workers knowing what their hours will be from week, where there is certainty of hours, is a reasonable request. It allows people to plan for child care and all of those issues.