Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Any measure that enhances the rights and conditions of workers is welcome. This Bill, we are told, will restore the system of registered employment agreements that was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in three sectors, namely, construction, forestry and meat processing. The Bill establishes a system for sectoral orders that can define pay and conditions in areas of the economy where an employer's refusal to recognise unions prevents voluntary registered employment agreements from being applied.

I will focus primarily on addressing concerns that have been raised with me by trade union and worker activists, particularly in the construction industry, on the basis that the measures will not alter the position for many workers because of practices that have become more entrenched on the employer side in recent years. I refer specifically, as previous speakers have done, to bogus self-employment arrangements on building sites that have become rife. A person who enters a building site supposedly as a self-employed person as opposed to an employee will automatically lose the protections offered in the Bill. This matter will only be remedied if a serious approach is taken by Revenue, which is forgoing millions of euro by permitting this practice to flourish, all Departments involved in tendering out major construction projects, and the trade union movement, which has serious work on its hands if it is to re-organise in the construction sector.

Take as a case study the JJ Rhatigan strike last year which spanned some six months. Workers organised by UNITE rightly opposed bogus self-employment practices on a Department of Education and Skills funded project which meant bricklayers working for the equivalent of €5 per hour. The very tendering processes for construction projects funded by the State should be enough to alert the Government that these practices are taking place when major construction companies tender on the basis of a price per block that can only be achieved at less than a registered employment agreement rate or even the minimum wage.

I have an advertisement from CLS Recruitment which offers to locate workers for construction firms or their sub-contractors by means of what are, in effect, bogus self-employment arrangements. The advertisement refers to the advantages of using the company which include no PRSI to pay, no holiday pay, no pension to pay, no bank holidays to pay, no sick leave to pay, no redundancy payments to make, no disputes with employees or unfair dismissals actions, and the ability to hire and off-hire staff at one hour's notice throughout the country. Here one sees written down in graphic terms what many companies do not write down. There it is in evidence. The company is offering bogus self-employment for people and a charter for total exploitation that robs construction workers of decent pay and conditions and Revenue of significant PAYE contributions which then have to be made up elsewhere. Interestingly, one provision of the Lansdowne Road agreement which partially restores pay for public sector workers is that when certain work is being considered for outsourcing, the pay levels private firms offer will no longer be criteria that can be factored in. Can this principle not apply on State-funded construction contracts? Can the Government not insist on REA rates and direct employment practices when bids come in for school building projects and the like?

The issue of who is representative of workers in a sector or workplace as provided for in the Bill is potentially problematic. The trade union movement operates in a hostile environment, particularly in the private sector. The jobs recovery touted by the Government and large sections of the media is built to a large degree on precarity. The reality of trade union organising is that significant resources have to go into some sectors and it can require painstaking work to build and then maintain a certain union density. The admirable efforts of Mandate in recruiting Dunnes workers over the years, for example, led to it achieving 60% density on the eve of the strike action. One has to deal with staff turnover and concerted anti-union campaigns by employers which under the terms of the Bill as drafted could result in unions being no longer regarded as substantially representative.

Finally, I make a more general point on the model of industrial relations we have. The explanatory memorandum accompanying the Bill refers on a number of occasions to the objective of achieving a system of harmonious industrial relations. Such an objective denies the reality of the opposing interests of the boss or employer class on the one hand and, on the other, of working class people. The boss class is broadly speaking hostile to trade unions. Some are willing to go all the way to the Supreme Court so as not to have to deal with trade unions for a reason. The initiative for achieving and maintaining decent pay and conditions fundamentally lies with workers themselves organising to take from the boss what he or she wants to keep as profits for himself or herself and his or her shareholders. Active organisation in democratic, fighting trade unions is the best mechanism available to workers to protect their interests and to fight for improvements in their conditions. Therefore, I will oppose and seek to amend and improve various measures provided for in the legislation that serve to curb the ability of workers and the unions to take effective and timely action to defend pay and conditions in response, for example, to future rises in the cost of living.

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