Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The proposed Bill has been tabled by Senator Quinn for whom I have great regard. He was a fantastic businessmen who employed thousands of people and I worked closely with him during the recent Seanad referendum campaign. Despite that, I will not support the Bill because it seeks to take advantage of the plight of ESB workers to introduce counterproductive measures that provide for the imprisonment for up to five years of workers who choose to strike. Striking is the last act of a worker in dispute. Sometimes ESB workers are blamed for the jobs they have but it is easily forgotten that the same people were out in snow blizzards restoring power this time three years ago for weeks on end. In some quarters, they are said to be privileged and, therefore, they should not have the right to strike.

We are in the fortunate position as a country that the lights will be on for Christmas. I would like to record my appreciation to the Labour Relations Commission, the trade unions and ESB management for their efforts in resolving this dispute. Churchill famously said: "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war".

In this instance, "jaw-jaw" proved to be the winner. The workers involved themselves, through the union, in healthy horse trading and transparent bargaining, which is part of any democracy, and Ireland is no different. What seems to be lost in all this is empathy for the workers involved, the same people who in some cases for 40 years paid into pensions and were told there would not be a pension available when they retired. The ESB workers are men and women with families and in many cases they have given the best years of their lives to the company which sought to pull the rug from beneath them.

Much has been said tonight about strikes and industrial action. It is worth noting that the last strike in the ESB of any significance was in 1991 and lasted four days. In my research I have been unable to find any strike in water utilities in the past 30 years. It is important to remember such facts when we debate not allowing these people the right to strike. I commend their spirit and solidarity, and I hope their actions show the public the power of the collective and a clear demonstration of the importance and relevance of the trade union movement 100 years after the Dublin Lock-out.

Pay, pensions and working conditions of all workers in this country have been dramatically eroded since the beginning the recession and now that we are entering a post bailout Ireland, we have the opportunity to shape our society and our economy. This Bill, if accepted, has the potential to prevent nurses, doctors, teachers and other public sector workers from entering an industrial dispute. What kind of anti-worker message is that? We are talking about workers who have carried this economy on their backs and taken all of the cuts and pain since the recession began. That is not an Ireland of which I want to be part. We should as a country and a Parliament look to be strengthening workers' rights rather than trying to divide and conquer, eroding the gains fought for so hard by workers. The public and private sectors should be standing in solidarity with the Marks & Spencer workers all over the country, the ESB workers and the Milne Foods workers in Offaly if we are ever to move away from the radical individualism that infected our great country as the Celtic tiger roared.

The Labour Party has worked hard in order to protect the low-paid and workers in precarious employment since we took the responsibility to clean up the mess left behind after Fianna Fáil. I am proud that as a Labour Party during the worst economic crisis in the history of the State we restored the minimum wage, took 330,000 low-paid workers out of the USC net and, against much opposition, fought for joint labour committees, JLCs, and employment regulation orders to be reformed and revitalised while putting them on a safe and secure legal and constitutional footing that will protect workers earning their wages in those sectors.

People have referred to Hungary, a country which in 2011 introduced legislation of this nature. On nine separate occasions, workers sought to have the right to strike but each time this was refused by the equivalent of our Labour Relations Commission in Hungary. In 1981, then US President Ronald Reagan passed legislation that forbade strikes by Government employees where public safety was at risk. On that occasion, air traffic controllers were forced back to work, and America now has the most glaring example of a two-tier society in the world, with union membership dropping to 12% and the disparity between rich and poor growing by the day.

The programme for Government includes a statement that we will "reform the current law on employees' right to engage in collective bargaining (the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2001), so as to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights." I am also pleased that the Tánaiste has announced that the Government will begin the process of legislating in the coming weeks to give employees the rights to engage in collective bargaining. In the year of the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Lock-out, Mr. Jack O'Connor, SIPTU general secretary, has stated, "Even to the extent that the right of collective bargaining, the core issue at stake in the Lock-out, which is respected in virtually every EU country, is still denied in this republic." I am glad to say it will not be denied for much longer. I look forward to the Minister's response. I thank Senator Quinn for moving the legislation so we could have an open and frank debate on the matter.