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

Obviously it is positive to be discussing any measure that will improve workplace relations and streamline the Labour Court and the Employment Appeals Tribunal, and the whole area of workers' rights and conciliation in cases of dispute. However, I am not sure that what the Minister is proposing here will achieve that aim. I am not against - I would be broadly for - streamlining the system, making it more accessible, speeding it up because of course there have been major delays, and allowing people to understand clearly how to access the industrial relations and the employment rights machinery of the State. From that point of view, the aims are reasonably laudable but there is probably a big gap between the aims and the means by which the Minister is proposing to deliver on those aims.

I wish to take up from where Deputy Joan Collins left off. It is not just about the machinery we have to vindicate the rights of people; it is also about identifying the rights of people. The context of this is that workers' rights in terms of the legal protection workers have are completely inadequate. The pitch is tipped very much in favour of employers as we discovered in some of the recent disputes and disputes going back over a number of years in which workers have been shafted by rogue employers with very little recourse or great difficulty getting recourse.

One dispute, which I have to encounter literally day because the venue of the dispute is right next door to my constituency office and which I have raised with the Minister on a number of occasions, is the Connolly Shoes dispute. Those workers are still picketing four years later. It is extraordinary. When they were eventually able to access the Employment Appeals Tribunal, Labour Court and the whole lot, their case was completely vindicated and the employer was shown to be in the wrong. He had not paid them moneys owed and had unfairly dismissed them. All of this was established and he has just completely refused to engage and refuses to pay them.

When the representatives of the workers have pursued the money through the courts and so on, he has hidden the money behind shelf companies he owns. Suddenly workers who thought they were working for Connolly Shoes discovered they were not working for Connolly Shoes but working for some other outfit, which happens to be owned by exactly the same guy, but apparently has no assets. So he has a range of different companies, some of which have the money insulated from any recourse for the workers to get hold of the money that the industrial relations machinery has determined they are owed. Everybody is throwing their hands up, claiming there is nothing they can do. It has taken four years and it looks as if they may have just about got there now. It is extraordinary to have workers picketing and in dispute for four years after essentially being turfed out by a rogue employer who refuses to pay them their entitlements.

These are real problems. We had something similar with the Vita Cortex dispute and the occupation that took place in Cork. We have a number of these instances where our laws allow rogue employers to hide from their responsibilities and obligations to their workers by essentially playing fast and loose with company law which allows them to do that. We need to do something about that.

The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has to address this. I do not claim it is an easy matter, but if a series of companies have the same directors and owners, and one of those companies has been found to be abusing the rights of those workers and has an obligation to pay them, there must be some way to prevent that person from hiding their assets with other companies. That just has to stop, as must hiding money offshore, as Deputy Joan Collins mentioned. There seems to be no political will on the part of the Government to make it stop. I want the Government to outline what it will do on that front.

What happened in the Greyhound dispute - we are now seeing it with JJ Rhatigan - is just not acceptable. Something needs to be done where employers decide they want something and if they do not get it they can just lock workers out. There was much hoo-ha and criticism by certain quarters about workers who were blockading the Greyhound depot. However, not mentioned enough in those discussions was that those workers arrived at work at 7 o'clock one morning and without any warning, discussion, consultation or negotiation there was a guy outside with a new contract with a 30% pay cut. He said, "Sign this or get lost." The workers said they would not accept that and were told, "Sorry, you're out. We have a bus-load of scabs we're going to bring in to do your job." Those workers were then forced to go through eight or nine weeks of a dispute in order to force him even into negotiation. Laws need to be changed to make it impossible for employers to treat workers in that way.

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