Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. That is appreciated. The amount of pay an employee receives is a matter for negotiation and agreement between the individual and the employer subject only to the provisions of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000. There is nothing to prevent employees reaching individual or collective agreements with employers on higher rates based on qualifications or other agreed criteria. As the Senator will be aware, I have created a legislative framework to allow that to happen. The Low Pay Commission, which I established earlier this year, will, on an annual basis, examine and make recommendations to the Minister of the day on the national minimum wage with a view to ensuring that the national minimum wage, where adjusted, is adjusted incrementally having had regard to changes in earnings, productivity, overall competitiveness and the likely impact any adjustment would have on employment and unemployment levels. The commission submitted its first report to me last July and recommended an increase of 50 cent per hour for an experienced adult worker. I will introduce that positive change on 1 January 2016, which will benefit approximately 124,000 of the lowest paid workers in our society.The Government has moved on a number of fronts to facilitate other forms of wage setting, in contrast with the view taken by other western European democracies in a post-recession scenario. We have enhanced wage-setting mechanisms and our collective bargaining legislation to support low-paid workers. The Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2012 provides a framework within which employers and employee representatives, through the joint labour committee, JLC, system, can come together voluntarily and negotiate terms and conditions of workers in their sector. When it reaches agreement on terms and conditions, the JLC publishes details and invites submissions. If, after consideration of any submissions received, the committee adopts the proposals, it will submit them to the Labour Court for consideration. The Labour Court will then make a decision on the adoption of the proposals. If the court decides they should be adopted, it will forward a copy of the proposals to the Minister. If it is considered appropriate, an order giving effect to such proposals will be made by the Minister. Such orders will be known as employment regulation orders. I signed two such orders on 1 October last for the security and contract cleaning sectors. These two orders will benefit, on a net basis, approximately 50,000 workers. Pay rates negotiated in the JLC fora have tended to be above the national minimum wage.

The Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015, which came into effect on 1 August, provides for a revised legislative framework to replace the registered employment agreement, REA, framework that was deemed invalid by the Supreme Court in 2013. The legislation sets out a replacement framework for REAs in individual enterprises and a new mechanism whereby pay, pension and sick pay provisions in a particular sector can be established, agreed and enforced by order.

I have outlined the legislative frameworks available to various sectors across the economy in terms of wage-setting mechanisms. There are opportunities for individual sectors to have their pay and terms and conditions examined in a structured way, for example, through the JLC system. While they are voluntary systems, where a JLC system is active, the legislation insists that a trade union that is representative of workers in the sector be active on the JLC and that it include representative bodies that represent the employer bodies. Thus the organisations can come forward and agree on improvements in the sector and the improvements can be approved by the Labour Court and, subsequently, adopted by the Minister of the day by way of employment regulation order. There are opportunities available under legislation to every sector to engage wage-setting mechanisms to improve their pay and terms and conditions and the position of the industry in general.