Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús báire, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl don Teachta Collins, a foireann agus foireann na hoifige, as an sárobair atá déanta aici chun an Bille seo a chur os ár gcomhair. Is é bun agus barr an scéil ná an próiseas a éascú ionas go mbeidh oibrithe in ann ballraíocht i gceardchumainn a ghlacadh, ma tá se sin ag teastáil. Is é an rud atá i gceist ná dualgas a chur ar na fostóirí, más é sin an rud atá ag teastáil. Níl i gceist ach Bille thar a bheith gearr agus simplí, agus deich mír atá i gceist. Ar a laghad, má tá deacrachtaí ag an Rialtas ó thaobh an Bhille seo de, ba chóir dó an Bille a ligean don chéad Chéim eile agus na fadhbanna sin a oibriú amach. I thank Deputy Collins and her team for this Bill. It is a short Bill comprising ten sections. Is bun agus barr an Bhille to make it easier for workers to become members of unions if they request that to the employer. The employer has a certain time within which to do that and pass on the subscription.

I attended a presentation in the audiovisual room yesterday. Most of the unions were represented there and I understand they are all behind it, as is the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. I actually sat there with my mouth open because it is such a basic entitlement, we really should not be fighting for this. If there are practical difficulties, as the Minister of State has now outlined, these should be teased out on Committee Stage. It is quite easy to table amendments. I shared the concerns of the Rural Independent Group Members when I was at the audiovisual room yesterday regarding the burden on employers. However, there are many ways of dealing with that. We were talking about bigger employers, I understand from Deputy Collins, so there could be an amendment to state it applies to businesses with more than a certain number of employees. We would not put an unnecessary administrative burden on small businesses, which I fully support. They are all over the city and county in Galway. That is one easy way of dealing with it.

The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond's, speech earlier never mentioned union busting. Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, has thrown it back to Deputy Collins for using the words "union-busting". That term comes directly from paragraph (16) of the preamble to the EU directive the Government has to make sure is law by November. There was no mention of it from either Minister of State. Is that going to happen? Is that deadline going to be met? We could look at paragraph (16) and discuss the huge problems faced by the reducing number of unions in Ireland where only 33% of employees are in unions. Paragraph (16) talks about the difficulty caused by union-busting. Will the Minister of State read that? Paragraph (4) of the preamble discusses conditions and paragraph (16), some of which Deputy Collins already read out, states "in particular as a consequence of union-busting practices and the increase of precarious and non-standard forms of work" and so on. That is where the phrase came from. It is the EU, that bastion of neoliberalism, telling us that this practice of union-busting is going on. We know that anecdotally in Ireland. We have many examples of a company being set up or coming to Ireland specifically to bust unions. It is disingenuous in the extreme to table an amendment like this which is anything but an amendment because it is saying the Government does not agree with this.

The Minister of State then gives reasons of constitutionality. Good Lord, there is nothing in the Constitution in regard to this. It is not about collective bargaining. It is not about forced recognition. It is about easing the process of allowing members to join a union. The irony of that is that Deputies and all the staff here benefit from unions fighting on our behalf. All of us in the public sector are about to get an increase of 2% to 3%, albeit some of us will get more than others, which is an argument for another day. What we want to do here is extend and make it easier for all workers to benefit from that. There is nothing here asking for instant recognition or collective bargaining, just an easing of the process. What is more, the evidence has come from the unions, from the figures of declining union numbers and from all the stories we hear about it being made extremely difficult.

In regard to those companies that passed on the subscriptions but not the increased subscriptions, can Members imagine using that tactic? It meant the union members fell into arrears. In other cases, when somebody exerted their rights or went out on industrial strike, the union subscriptions were stopped. That practice is totally unacceptable. I know the Minister of State's heart is not in this yet he is standing over an amendment that is totally without grounding and not allowing this to be presented and debated at a committee in order that the concerns expressed by Deputies Mattie McGrath and Seán Canney and their colleagues could be teased out.

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