Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Naughten. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to this important debate. I would like to voice my support for the general thrust of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015. The Bill will go some way towards strengthening our current legislation, and that is a starting block from which we can move towards the dismantling of zero hour contracts, poor working conditions and victimisation of workers who wish to be represented by trade unions, as we saw in recent weeks.

In February 1998, as enterprise, trade and employment spokesperson in the House, I introduced the first trade union recognition Bill on behalf of the labour and trade union movement. This followed lengthy consultations with trade union and employee representatives and was especially directed at assisting unionised workers in Ryanair, where chief executive Michael O'Leary refused to engage with his own workforce and its trade union representatives. I recall the bitter hostility to the proposal from some employers and in particular from US companies based in Ireland and from IDA Ireland acting on their behalf. A key mechanism in the 1998 bill was subsequently adopted in the 2001 and 2004 Industrial Relations Actsand later attacked in the2007 Supreme Court decision on Ryanair v.IMPACT. That brings us back to today's legislation.

I welcome Chapter 2, which restores the legislative framework for REAs, and Chapter 3, which does the same for sectoral employment orders following a lacuna for many years in this area. In July 2011 the High Court found the JLC wage-setting mechanisms to be unconstitutional and struck down the employment regulation orders, EROs, which had applied under the Industrial Relations Act 1946. In 2013, in the John Grace Fried Chicken case, the Supreme Court further struck down Part III of the 1946 Act. Hopefully, these infirmities in earlier legislation have been fully rectified in sections 5 to 20 of this Bill and future court challenges regarding the constitutionality of Parts 2 and 3 will not occur. To have allowed our industrial relations machinery to exist without such legislation for a number of years was unacceptable, and I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Gerald Nash, has moved at last to restore this legislative bulwark for good industrial relations.

I have some concerns regarding the provisions in section 7(3)(C) relating to REAs, whereby the trade union must be "substantially representative of the workers to whom the agreement relates". In section 14(1)(A)(I), relating to sectoral employment orders, there is a similar provision, whereby the trade union must be "substantially representative of the workers of the particular class, type or group in the economic sector". It will certainly now fall to the Labour Court to define these clauses on a case-by-case basis. I hope that significant groups of workers will not be disenfranchised by these sections in the actual operation of the Bill. Another big worry for workers and their representatives, as the Minister of State will have observed in the preparatory period of the Bill, is that there do not seem to be many compliance and enforcement provisions for Chapters 2 and 3 in the published Bill. Perhaps the Minister of State will return to these issues in his response to the debate and on Committee Stage.

Part 3 of the Bill will amend existing legislation, as mentioned earlier, in order to insert definitions of "collective bargaining" and "excepted body". The nub of Part 3 of the Bill is the provision of a better legal route for workers to go to the Labour Court for reviews of their salary, terms and conditions, which is very welcome. However, the Bill does not address the fundamental right to trade union recognition and representation, which I tried to address 17 years ago, in a forthright way, or the deplorable impact on workers of the 2007 Supreme Court judgment. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights clearly protects freedom of association, which includes the right to bargain collectively. Article 28 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights also provides for the right of collective bargaining and collective action. I note, for example, that Michael Doherty of Maynooth University has expressed concern that the term "voluntary engagements", which the Minister of State has inserted into the definition of collective bargaining, may be open to wide interpretation and that Ireland has had, until now, perhaps the weakest legal protection for collective bargaining in much of the EU. Unite trade union has also expressed fears that the retention of the concept of "excepted body" in section 23 may allow companies to negotiate with their employees only through an employer-sponsored association or an employer-friendly company union.

Like other speakers, I welcome section 35 of Part 3, which provides for the amendment of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 in order to protect persons who may be victimised or dismissed for being a member of the trade union. Only a few weeks ago we heard from Dunnes workers in this very building about serious intimidation and victimisation of workers who stood up for their basic rights.

It is disappointing to see that the opportunity has not been taken in this Bill to include, once and for all, the right to full recognition for trade unions. This is a missed opportunity. However, I welcome the small improvements the Minister of State has made in this Bill and I commend him on that work.

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