Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I am a union person and was on the national women's committee of the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland in 1973. I was very quiet because I was young then and did not know as much as I do now. Now I am at my peak with all my experience. It simply stands to reason that no company can compete in this intensely globalised and competitive business world unless it has good management-staff relations. Senator Quinn was one of the first to bring this on board in discussions and involvement with his staff. He brought the customer service aspect to the retail sector many years ago.

Only 25% of private sector workers are unionised. However, the Bill cannot be overly prescriptive for non-union companies. The EU directive, on which the Bill is based, allows for interpretation of national ethos in its implementation. Although it is an EU directive, each member state can have its own way in implementing it. The Bill provides that information and consultation will be exclusively between an employer and employee but, in any case, subject to the approval of the employees, both of which are welcome provisions. However, there is a need to copperfasten further the definition of employees as people who are contracted only to their employer. The Bill provides certain options by way of internal structures to implement the provision of information and consultation. However, it is important that the Bill will allow for more than one arrangement within a particular undertaking in order to achieve coverage of all employees, to cater for disparate geographical locations or for distinct staff groups. This is an important issue for large companies.

The Bill provides that after the issue of a ministerial order and subject to a request in writing of 10% of employees, the employees would then be able to trigger negotiations with their employer. It is essential that the provision for an opt-in trigger remains. However, for large undertakings the upper limit of no more than 100 employees needed to make the request is much too low and is wide open to possible abuse by minorities. It must be made proportionate to the real size of the undertaking. The provision of a trigger is consistent with article 15 of the preamble to the directive which states: "This directive is without prejudice to national systems regarding the exercise of this right in practice where those entitled to exercise it are required to indicate their wishes collectively". The trigger must provide proof that a significant proportion of the workforce back the request. The Bill has a low threshold.

There is a real concern in non-union employments that a single issue affecting one department could jeopardise an agreement approved by all employees, particularly in an e-mail environment where it is easy to quickly gather large numbers of signatures. Some 240 companies in Ireland have more than 1,000 employees. At a minimum the opt-in trigger in the Bill must be increased to 15% of employees in an undertaking. This means the figure is greater than 150 employees but not less than 250 employees. We do not want crank issues coming to the fore.

Many of the foreign direct investment companies in Ireland have state-of-the-art human relations procedures and personnel departments. Many working in them have Masters degrees on staff co-operation and getting employees to develop their potential. When my company, Lir Chocolates, became unionised I was delighted as it made it easier for myself and Connie Doody. As the company had become so large, we could not be negotiating with everybody. With the union, we then had one person to deal with instead of more than 30 employees. The multinationals which have made a large contribution to the Celtic tiger employ thousands, both directly and indirectly. It must be acknowledged they have management systems that Members would not even dream about. I am often gobsmacked by non-consultation in the Oireachtas at different times. I am not talking about the Fianna Fáil Party but how the Houses of the Oireachtas deals with matters and how slow that can be.