Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Mick Barry.

The issue before us says a lot. Everybody has expressed their outrage at the record of the Labour Party in the previous Government. To me, it is like Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde was in government and during that time, it is worth reminding ourselves that, particularly in the public sector, Labour created havoc in terms of workers' pay, allowances, pensions and workers' rights in general. That sets the trend and spills over into the private sector where employers automatically, by osmosis, feel they have carte blancheto start implementing all sorts of austerity measures on their workers. Why would they not? If the fish rots from the head, then there is the rotten fish on the Labour Party benches because that party started the rot in terms of workers' rights, not that we ever had very many of them.

A good friend of mine died nearly two years ago. He was a union official all his life but was doing favours for people after he retired, and he asked me to complete a case for him of a migrant worker who was owed hundreds of euro in overtime payments by a well-known fast-food chain. The employer did not cough up. We waited two years for that case to come up. After Brendan died, the case came up. Frank won his case before the rights commissioner. It took two years. The employer appealed it. It took a year and a half for the appeal to be completed. He won his case again. Now the employer is refusing to pay. The only redress this migrant worker has is to take civil action in the courts. This is not protection for workers.

On Thursday last, Transdev, a company well known to all Members, illegally deducted 10% of wages from 180 Luas drivers. The company broke the Payment of Wages Act 1991. I read that Act again today and nowhere does it allow for employers to deduct money from workers on the back of legal trade union industrial action they have taken. Not a dicky bird was said, either inside this House or, indeed, by the leaders of the trade union movement, many of whom are members of the Labour Party, about this complete breach of legislation that is supposed to protect workers. What we need is very strong legislation. I do not believe that what is contained in the motion or legislation alone will suffice.

We also need tight and deep levels of trade union organisation. Last week we had a presentation from Unite in New Zealand about how it legally banned zero-hour contracts. One of the interesting points about that presentation is that Unite needed legalised access to workplaces and that was one of the first rights it went after. I very much welcome the section in the Sinn Féin amendment which states that unions must have legal access to workplaces and workers in order to represent them properly.

The Government should not be let off the hook. I want to examine its amendment. It refers to upholding a strong economy and a fair society. We have never seen a more unequal society, even when the economy was much stronger under the previous Government. As the economy gets stronger under this Government, we still have gross inequality. The Government's amendment refers to a gradual negotiated repeal of FEMPI. We discussed it today and we will talk about it more in the House, given that we have put down a motion for its repeal. If somebody robbed one's house, would one tell the robber it would be okay if he or she gradually returned the money and jewellery he or she had stolen? This is what has happened. The Government has robbed public sector workers and is talking about gradually repaying them. The Government did not gradually bail out the banks or gradually cut social welfare under the previous Government. We must tackle head-on the sort of language the Government has used in its amendment to the motion.

The Government has said it will respect and fully support the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. The establishment of the WRC, which is very recent, included a 20% reduction in the levels of staffing in a so-called new system. The old system was already creaking with years of waiting lists and 3,500 outstanding cases. There is no sincerity on the part of the Government to deal with the question of equality, workers' rights and fairness for employees. We must tackle this head-on.

Even Margaret Thatcher, for all her notorious union bashing, gave, under legislation, the right to trade union recognition if 50% of employees were signed up. Where is trade union recognition in this country, 103 years after Larkin and Connolly led the struggle to achieve it? What successive Governments have done is outrageous. The motion does not go far enough. I support the two amendments, and not the Government amendment.

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