Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

This is quite a substantial Bill. It is in many ways a huge body of work set against the backdrop of dysfunctional industrial relations machinery in the State. Since I have been elected and have raised cases brought to me, I am aware that in many instances people waited 84 or 85 weeks for an appeal hearing. In an unfair dismissal case, justice delayed is justice denied. That person would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting his or her job back or anything like that. None of us would disagree that the system needs to be radically reformed. Is this the right way? We need to consider it against the backdrop of the economy overall.

I note the surveys produced in the past week that show we have the second highest number of low-paid jobs after the United States. A total of 130,000 people here are in low-paid jobs who would like to be in full-time jobs. There is an explosion of zero hour contracts which shackle people to their telephones awaiting a call to see if they can get an hour here or there. The race to the bottom is alive and well. There is a difference between injustice and illegality. This Bill is the last port of call when a grievance or wrong has been done and someone seeks redress. We should be considering how to create a climate where fewer wrongs are done and people do not have to seek recourse to the industrial relations machinery. One of the reasons we are in this situation is that the trade union movement has, sadly, abandoned much of what it was set up to do and has settled for negotiating for a few crumbs from the table rather than championing the cause of workers in this State.

I am a bit concerned about the National Employment Rights Authority, NERA. It was supposed to be proactive in dealing with abuse of workers’ rights. If we are to amalgamate it with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, how can it be proactive in workplace investigations and so on? It is quite limited as it is currently constituted. When the Greyhound workers came to us and we facilitated a meeting with them and NERA, the staff were incredibly professional in their desire to help workers and very helpful but they were hamstrung by the legislation as it was then. An unscrupulous employer would very quickly find his or her way around NERA and box off responsibility by outsourcing unhealthy practices to a third party. We have spoken about this in the House before, and scenes reminiscent of "On the Waterfront", with workers being picked up in car parks and no one knowing who they were or whether they paid taxes or anything. I am not sure this new legislation takes on board these situations. How can NERA’s investigative, proactive role be protected when it is dissolved into a wider body?

There are other areas that need examination. One of the key problems has been the lack of enforcement of rulings from the industrial relations machinery. If this legislation is to be effective, we need to stand that system on its head.

There is a young man in my constituency whose story has been published in the newspapers. There is no secret and he knows I am raising it in the House. David Bell is 27 and was working for the multinational corporation eBay. Mistakenly, he was brought into an investigation about fraud and PayPal, although he had no case to answer. The employer reprimanded him for giving two €25 vouchers to aggrieved customers, something the company did for dissatisfied customers. Management said it was not appropriate in those cases. He was brought into a meeting without any representation. He was told he could not leave the meeting until he completed a written statement, parts of which management dictated to him and told him he could not have a representative present. He was subsequently dismissed and the company described him as dishonest, unprofessional and fraudulent. He took a case to the rights commissioner who was scathing in his criticism of eBay saying he was wrongfully dismissed and was subjected coercive tactics. He said that eBay’s position was seriously in breach of natural justice and fair procedure.

The rights commissioner recommended a payment of €15,000 in compensation to the young man and the withdrawal of the dismissal letter. That was almost nine months ago. Nothing has been done to rectify the situation. This young man, who is starting his working life, has not been given any apology or any compensation. The letter has not been withdrawn.

This example could be replicated in many other cases I could expand on here. If big companies are allowed to get away with this, what chance does a worker in a smaller company have? What guarantee do we have that this scenario will not happen under the new arrangement? I have a list of citizens from around the country who have had definitive judgments made in their favour by the State's industrial relations machinery, but have not got the money. Unfortunately, I do not have time to go through all these cases. The people in question did not get justice because their employers shrugged their hands and walked away. If this legislation is to be effective, it is clear that we really need to address this matter. We need to look at the whole system whereby people with decent jobs are being made redundant, only to be replaced by interns with low-paid jobs. That is a bit of a sick joke that needs to be dealt with.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude by speaking about an area in which something is lacking. The Minister needs to address it because it has been brought to his attention on a number of occasions. Many former employees are interested in being able to access the State's industrial relations machinery. I refer particularly to those who were part of an employment pension scheme and are concerned about things that happened to the scheme after they left the employment in question. Even though they have a very clearly defined and vested interest in that scheme, they are not represented by a trade union because they are outside the employment and, as a result, they have no access to industrial relations assistance. The most graphic illustration of that problem is the Irish aviation superannuation scheme. Almost 10,000 deferred and active pensioners in that scheme are facing an almighty hammering of the reasonable expectation they had about the standard of living they would enjoy in their retirement. Under a process that is under way, the trustees are being empowered to change the terms of that pension scheme and an expert panel has been convened. The deferred group and the pensioner group were both prohibited from participating in that process. They could not access the Labour Relations Commission, which came up with the mechanism that is undermining their rights. We know that organisations like the Retired Aviation Staff Association have put in place a system that gives retired workers vehicles to organise their interests. A mechanism should be found in this legislation to enshrine access to these processes for groups of retired people whose standard of living is being affected. Under the current airport scheme, pensioners are expected to lose six weeks' pay per annum due to changes they had no hand, act or part in. I hope the Minister will address this issue in the final stages of this process. If we are serious about the new legislation being of benefit to workers, much more work needs to be done on it.

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