Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

To pick up on that point about issues being best and ideally worked out at local level, unions tell us that quite a number of companies are actively and openly hostile to trade unions coming into the workplace. We have seen workers who within a few weeks of coming into a workplace go to a trade union and are warned not to do so because it is not good for them. On a second warning, they are kicked out. Others have been victimised over a period because they want to try to set up a trade union. Is IBEC comfortable with that? I am conscious that within IBEC, there are members who engage with unions on collective bargaining. There are other members that do not. Is Ms McElwee comfortable with the notion that companies out there are openly hostile to trade unions that are merely trying to go in and negotiate terms and conditions at the most appropriate level, that is, at enterprise level?