Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for straying into section 2 earlier. I understood we were covering a number of sections, but perhaps I am just finding it difficult to get the timbre of the House. We are still getting used to it.

I thank the Minister for her response. As my colleague, Senator Ivana Bacik, said, we have no difficulty in working constructively with the Government because we are not in the business of merely making a point about this issue; we want to make a difference. I am pleased with the responses of colleagues in other political parties and none on their approach to this legislation. That is positive.

I wish to pick up on a number of issues the Minister raised, which leads us into a discussion on section 2. As I said earlier, the section does not seek to bestow new rights on anyone. It merely seeks to restore rights that obtained in advance of the Competition Authority's ruling in a decision in the early 2000s. The absence of collective bargaining rights from the arts and culture sector for freelance workers and those involved in journalism and the music industry has had a chilling effect on industrial relations and the ability of trade unions to organise effectively to enable their members to be provided with the service they would like to give to them. More important is the effect it has had on living standards. Colleagues discussed how in some cases we had seen ia reduction of 40% in the living standards of freelance journalists. Their inability to have their pay and terms and conditions restored because of the absence of legislation covering collective bargaining is worrying and the Bill seeks to address this issue.

The State was before the International Labour Organization just a matter of weeks ago to answer a case regarding the absence of collective bargaining rights for freelance workers. Representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and IBEC, the social partners, attended and participated in that discussion. I was a little concerned about some references made at the hearing by the State's representatives, particularly the view expressed that the decision of the Competition Authority did not prevent freelance workers, to whom we are referring, from being represented collectively other than in matters of pay. If collective bargaining has nothing to do with pay, we need to re-examine our entire understanding of what it means. This time last year, with the support of this and the Lower House, we introduced new, effective and constitutionally robust collective bargaining legislation, the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015. To borrow a phrase, collective bargaining and representation, without the right to discuss and agree on pay, mean nothing at all to me or anybody else in this House. I am certain, though, that when the European Union decided that it would draft competition laws and rules and regulations, it did not have the work of Irish session musicians, voice-over actors or freelance journalists in mind. We all understand why there are robust competition law and rules in place: it is to prevent price-fixing by big multinational corporations and its effect on consumers. Therefore, when we consider legislation, we probably need to step back a little and try to understand the journey the drafters were on, what they intended to do and what the target was with the legislation. Its target certainly was not those gathered in the Visitors Gallery or those who seek to represent them.

I am of the view which I have held since the early 2000s that the Competition Authority's decision was the result of an overzealous and overweening interpretation of European Union competition law and that it should never be the case that competition law should override the overarching concerns we as a society should have for workers' rights, the ability of workers to be represented and their capacity to make a living. The need for exemptions for certain categories of worker in this corpus of law has been recognised before by the State. It was recognised in the Towards 2016 social partnership arrangements and agreed- "agreed" being the operative word - by the Government and the social partners that exemptions should be applied to the large category of workers to whom we are referring. Section 2 of the Bill will make good on that commitment, one which was renounced in 2012 in the context of different discussions, into which I will not go, at a very different time in our recent history.For those in the House and elsewhere who still have concerns about our capacity to do something about this, we should reflect on the ECJ judgment in the Dutch case, to which the Minister and others referred on Second Stage. Space has opened up for us to re-examine the application of competition law to self-employed workers in such arrangements because they are, to all intents and purposes, employees. The issue has evolved in recent weeks. The ILO has asked the Government to respond in November regarding its view as to how this issue can be progressed.

I was disappointed that the State sought to hide behind competition rules on this issue at the ILO hearing and took the view that nothing could be done because of the primacy, as some see it, of competition law as opposed to the need to protect and advance workers' rights. It is the case in France and Germany and it is about to be the case in Denmark and other member states that certain exemptions can apply in the context of collective bargaining and there is a provision in section 12A of the German collective bargaining Act which provides for special exemptions for certain types of workers in the culture and media sectors, for example, different categories of authors. Where those exemptions can be applied, they have been applied elsewhere and there is no reason for the State to fail to address this issue. That is what we are seeking to do in this section. In doing so, we would not just do those in the Visitors Gallery a great service but we would do our society a great service and it would also assist the Government in meeting its international obligations under ILO convention 98, which relates to collective bargaining. This builds on the motion promoted by the Labour Party in the Dáil in recent weeks to make work pay and to enhance dignity at work and the dignity of work agenda. Colleagues I formerly served with in government and I made a significant impact in enhancing our corpus of employment rights legislation over the past two years, in particular, and this legislation is the next stage in enhancing protections in the workplace. This will not only making Ireland the best small country in the world in which to do business but also the best small country in the world in which to work. We will work constructively with the Minister and all like minded colleagues in the House to make that a reality.