John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share my time with Senator Moloney - three minutes each. I welcome the Minister to the House. I also welcome this legislation and commend the Minister of State, Deputy Nash, on bringing it before the House. Due to the importance of the provisions, I trust there will be no delay in making it the law of the land before the summer recess. The Bill provides for the reinstatement of REAs and for collective bargaining. At the same time, a further piece of legislation, the National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Bill 2015 is progressing through the Seanad.

I accept Senator Power's point that if people cannot get 19 hours work, they do not get the family income supplement. I recommend to the Minister that he speak to the Minister for Social Protection about this. We should have a situation where the payment is tapered, so that if somebody gets 18 hours they would get 55% of the payment rather than 60% and if they get 17 hours they would get 50% of it. Consideration should be given to this at some stage.

This package of legislative proposals on industrial relations between employer and employee is the most far-reaching reform of Ireland's industrial relations machinery in decades. The new REA framework is particularly important as the old structure of REAs has been struck down by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds. Whole sectors of the workforce lost a critical component of industrial relations machinery. Now we have a statutory, robust framework to enable workers to negotiate terms and conditions of their employment in a civilised fashion, which will be registered and binding on both parties to the agreement.

A central part of the agreement on the sale of the State's shareholding in Aer Lingus to IAG was based on a commitment that this legislation would be passed urgently and that a series of REAs would be negotiated for various sectors of the Aer Lingus workforce and registered when this Bill becomes law. This is intended to protect against the outsourcing of jobs and compulsory redundancies and to provide for pay and improved conditions for Aer Lingus employees. The REA framework will provide a platform for good industrial relations and will contribute to industrial peace in the workplace.

Second, the programme for Government included a commitment to reform the current law on workers' rights to engage in collective bargaining, so as to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Henceforth, workers, with the assistance of their trade unions, will be able to progress claims about pay and conditions of employment and can have the Labour Court decide on the basis of comparisons with similar companies. This will allow workers, where there is no collective bargaining in place, to access the Labour Court and obtain a statutory remedy against exploitation. This entitlement will create a whole new precedent on workers' rights where trade unionism is not recognised by the employer at present. Collective bargaining is now a fundamental legal right in 24 of the 27 EU member states. However, 100 years from the Lock-out, this is still not the case in Ireland. It is a significant achievement of the Labour Party in government and of the Minister of State, Deputy Nash, that we are now introducing collective bargaining legislation.