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

The starting point in discussing this Industrial Relations (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2011 is to remind ourselves of the workers with which this legislation deals. They are the lowest paid 200,000 to 300,000 workers, including women workers, young people, part-time workers and immigrant workers. They are also the most vulnerable. One need only look at the areas the JLCs and the EROs cover to see that is the case. We are talking about hairdressing, catering, retail, the hospitality industry, shop workers and so on. These workers are already struggling to have a decent livelihood and are struggling significantly as a result of all the other problems our economy faces which have tended to hit low and middle income families and the vulnerable sectors in our society hardest.

The events of the past few weeks have shone a light on the plight of these workers and the direction in which any legislation dealing with workers in these areas should be heading. This legislation comes up very short in that regard. I refer to the situation in Vita Cortex, La Senza, Lagan Brick, or one I heard about over the past few days which occurred last summer in the Jane Norman chain and which was a carbon copy of the La Senza situation. The appalling treatment of the La Senza workers occurred on a larger and a worse scale in the Jane Norman chain in June where workers were left high and dry in the same circumstances. They received text messages that their jobs were gone but one month's wages were still outstanding.

I spoke to a very unfortunate young woman worker who had the misfortune of working for Jane Norman and who had not been paid a month's wages and who subsequently got a job with La Senza to find herself involved in the recent occupation fighting to have her wages paid over Christmas. She is furious at the failure of public representatives, including a considerable number on the Government side who promised her the sun, moon and stars in June and that they would help her with her plight but who did absolutely nothing about it. There is nothing in this legislation which will help prevent the disgraceful treatment of the La Senza, Jane Norman, Lagan Brick and Vita Cortex workers or anybody in similar situations.

Unless we bring forward legislation to protect the rights and entitlements of workers in those situations, we are missing the point of what needs to happen in terms of legislation on workers rights and entitlements. That failure and the absence in this legislation speaks to the more fundamental problem, or the thrust or direction from which this legislation is coming. As others have pointed out, the striking down of the REAs and the EROs in the courts came from a move by employers' organisations. They wanted to get rid of even the merger protections and rights these lowest paid and most vulnerable workers enjoyed. That is the direction from which it is coming.

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