Written answers

Tuesday, 10 July 2018

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Industrial Relations

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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89. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if effective legal protection will be given to vulnerable workers by ensuring that they have a right to collective bargaining and trade union representation. [26523/18]

Photo of Pat BreenPat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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At the outset, I must emphasise that Ireland’s system of industrial relations is, essentially, voluntary in nature and responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers, rests with the employer, the workers and their representatives. 

For its part, the State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement mechanisms i.e. the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court, to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences. These bodies are independent in the delivery of their quasi-judicial functions, in which I as Minister have no role.  This approach has served Ireland well over the years and in a large number of high profile disputes. 

Under Irish law there is no obligation on employers to recognise trade unions and there are no plans to bring forward legislation to provide for mandatory trade union recognition.

While Ireland’s system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary in nature, it has been the consistent policy of successive Irish Governments to promote collective bargaining through the laws of this country and through the development of an institutional framework supportive of a voluntary system of industrial relations that is premised upon freedom of contract and freedom of association. 

There is an extensive range of statutory provisions designed to back up the voluntary bargaining process.  The freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively are also guaranteed in a number of international instruments which the State has ratified and which it is, therefore, bound to uphold under international law.  

The most recent legislation to facilitate this is the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 which came into effect on 1 August 2015 and was the result of an in-depth consultation with stakeholders, including employer and worker representatives, and a review of the experience of the operation of the existing legislative framework. 

The 2015 Act makes provision, in instances where employers engage in collective bargaining with an ‘internal excepted body’ as opposed to a trade union, for a referral to be made to the Labour Court to establish if internal bargaining bodies are genuinely independent of their employer.  If the Court finds that the mechanism is not independent it can then proceed to hear the dispute at issue.

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