Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

I thank Deputies Paul Murphy and Ruth Coppinger for bringing forward this important and timely Bill. As a State, Ireland is well behind other EU states in terms of the rights of workers to be represented by a trade union. In most other EU states this is legally guaranteed. Ireland is completely out of line with most of our European neighbours. This right has been resisted by successive Governments and big business down through the decades. While the Constitution guarantees the right to be able to join a trade union, an employer does not have to recognise it and can simply refuse the right of staff to collective bargaining and the protection that union membership offers.

Employers have greater social and economic powers than workers. That is just a simple fact. The only power that a worker has is through combining with their co-workers so they cannot be picked off individually. This tactic is often used and I have witnessed in workplaces. Hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers have no representation and very few rights. The percentage of workers in the private sector who are now unionised is very low at the moment. This needs to change. In many sectors, employment has become casualised, with no set hours. Short-term contracts are common as are so-called employment agencies. Workers' rights in many cases have gone backwards and that needs to change. Hard-won basic rights have been undermined by union-busting activities. Workers who join a trade union are sometimes targeted by their employers and victimised. There are good examples of that around this State. One group of workers will be played off against another, which is common practice. In some cases, unionised workers will be cleared out of a business and replaced in a relatively short time by lower-paid, non-unionised workers. This can be seen happening around this country. In the beef industry, that happened in some beef plants.

While previous Ministers have stated that they fully support the right of any worker to join a trade union and be active therein, those are hollow words, which have no meaning, because they cannot be brought into effect. If asked about joining a union, workers, in many cases, will express a fear of being targeted by their bosses because of being a union member.

Imagine the uproar if IBEC, the Irish Hotels Federation, the IFA or other organisations, which legitimately have a right to collectively negotiate, were told by Government that they could not represent their members and that it could only deal with them individually. There would be uproar in this country. It is time to close the loophole in Irish law. It is time to bring industrial relations into the 21st century. It is time to catch up with our EU neighbours.

I heard the Minister of State say that the Government has committed to bringing in collective bargaining. I ask him not to back-pedal on this. He should put his foot on the accelerator and drive this on. We need to move into the 21st century with industrial relations in the country. I appeal to all TDs to support this good Bill.

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