Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I often find myself following my constituency colleague Deputy Ó Murchú. I am always happy to give way to him if he needs additional space to elaborate on a point. I agree with him on the treatment of the PayPal workers in Dundalk.

All too often in the past couple of years, local Deputies have had to advise, individually and collectively, Paypal workers on their rights and entitlements in the context of a statutory collective redundancy consultation process because that is an employment where trade unions are not recognised and employers - not just Paypal but across the economy - are openly hostile to trade union organisation. While I am always happy to provide the benefit of my wisdom and knowledge on trade union matters and employment rights legislation to workers, it is best that workers are collectively represented by their trade unions because there is not an equality of arms in negotiations around collective redundancy. Employers often exploit that lack of knowledge and the gap left by the absence of a trade union.

The Labour Party actively supports this important legislation. I commend Deputy Collins for introducing it to the House. The Labour Party is the party of the trade union movement and at all times we seek to represent the interests of working people. While it is clear all parties that purport to be of the left in this House, as well as Independents, support this legislation, I am deeply concerned by the position adopted by the Minister of State and Government. I was not here to hear the Minister of State's remarks but I understand the proposal is to send the legislation to the employment law review group. We are in a peculiar situation when a Minister of State intends to send legislation from this House to an expert group which has not yet been established. That illustrates the hostility of the Government to progressive legislation and moves towards enhancing the rights of working people. The Government has always had to be dragged kicking and screaming to introduce progressive legislation and improvements to the conditions of working people. It is quite extraordinary that we are in this position.

I understand an argument may have been put forward that elements of the legislation may not be in compliance with the Constitution. That is an extraordinary statement to make given that, for example, the employment regulation order giving effect to the joint labour committee agreement for the contract cleaning industry - a joint labour committee system I reintroduced in the 2010s - included direct reference to an agreement whereby union dues can be collected at source and remitted in the way we would like to see. That proposition in the employment regulation order has not been constitutionally challenged by anybody. Rogue employers in certain industries where JLCs apply have shown themselves only too willing to take challenges around the constitutionally of our wage-setting mechanisms. If there is a vulnerability there, I imagine it would have been challenged already. That has not happened and will not happen. I do not believe the Minister of State should hide behind the argument that there is a constitutional issue around the straightforward position of putting it into law that somebody's trade union subscriptions should be taken at source and sent to the person's trade union. That, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire has indicated, has happened routinely throughout our history.

We know from the Tesco dispute in 2017 and 2018 that there are employers who are willing to stop the remittance of trade union dues from workers to frustrate the work of the trade union. That was at the heart of that dispute. Mandate has a clear position on that. We heard from Mandate, the Financial Services Union and Unite about how important this legislation is to stop union-busting. We have union-busting in this country. It is illegal but it happens subtly. It happens through employers deciding unilaterally to stop taking union dues from salaries directly, remitting them to trade unions and informing trade unions of that. We have blacklisting as well. Officials in various Departments will say we do not have blacklisting because we have laws against it but it is done extremely subtly, and is effective in its subtlety.

Coming down the tracks is the EU minimum wage directive, which is required to be transposed into law before the end of the year. We will be watching carefully the way in which the Government transposes that important legislation. Over the generations, governments have taken a minimalist view of transposition of directives that apply to working people. We will have a requirement to reach 80% collective bargaining coverage under the directive. We have systems in place that would allow us to meet that ambition. We have the sectoral employment order system and the JLC system. One way in which the Government could assist itself in meeting Ireland's EU law obligations would be to adopt this legislation, which would allow for greater membership of trade unions, make membership much more straightforward and reach the level of collective bargaining coverage required under the directive.

The EU minimum wage directive is not a panacea. We understand it will not give the right to organise and so on. That should be a matter for future governments with a different complexion from this Government. I ask the Minister of State to review the Government position on this legislation and allow it to proceed to Committee Stage for further interrogation. Working people in this country require it.

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