Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 June 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

European Works Councils and Related Irish Legislation: Discussion

Mr. Tom Hayes:

Certainly. As is the nature of any sort of process that involves two parties, like management and employee representatives, there will always be a point where there is a disagreement over something. I will give the Senator quite a common example, namely, what is information. That includes when do we get information, when do we give information to the employee representatives and how much information should we be giving. Management will take a view it has given employees enough information and quite frankly, the employee side will generally the view management has not given enough. There can be disputes over that and there have been ones over that which have gone to the Central Arbitration Committee, CAC, in the UK. There could be a dispute over employees not being given enough training or not being given the right training. We have seen disputes around that. One of the issues before the WRC this morning is that very matter. Ironically, it is that training that was provided by Kevin Duffy to the EWC-----