I indicated my desire last night to say a word on Section 14; it was for the purpose of directing the attention of the House to the fact that skim milk sometimes masquerades as cream. When drafting this section the Minister for Industry and Commerce was seized with such patriotic fervour that he determined to place on record his unalterable determination to give the Irish language its correct place in the Act and, in sub-section 3 (e), he lays down that every piece-work particulars placard shall be in both the Irish and English language and shall be displayed in every room where such industrial work is done—such placards to give the piece-work particulars in respect of such industrial work. Observe that when the placard is put up on the wall for every one to see, the Irish and English are co-equal. Every word of this loathsome English language is to be translated into Irish for the edification of the plain people of Ireland and it shall be placed there on indelible record that Seán Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is indissolubly wedded to the Irish language. But under sub-section (4) where the piece-work particulars relating to any form of industrial work are to be entered in the piece-work particulars book what is our amazing discovery? We find that this provision is withdrawn and no reference is then to be made to the Irish language at all. So long as the Irish language is placarded on the wall for those who want to read it, the Irish language and the English language are both to be plastered there, but when it is to be inserted in the piece-work particulars book which, it is presumed, is to be read, the Irish language is completely forgotten. Could anything be more extraordinarily typical of the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party towards the Irish language? So long as you can get the Irish language to serve the purpose of wrapping the green flag round you it is all right and by all means it is to be placarded on the wall. But when you come down to the point of using the language in the same way as you use the English language it is entirely forgotten and the obligation to use the Irish language in the book of instructions is completely omitted. So long as it is a question of placarding the Irish on the wall the Fianna Fáil Party will do everything in their power to have it done but in the book of instructions it is altogether omitted.
Conditions of Employment Bill, 1935—Committee Stage (Resumed).
I want to point out that Deputy Dillon does not understand sub-section (3) which is intended to ensure that the placard shall contain an English translation of the piece-work particulars in respect of wages, but we do not think it necessary in sub-section (4) to require the piece-work particulars book to be kept in the English language.
That is quite true.
I move amendment No. 46:—
In sub-section (2), line 17, before the word "discloses" to insert the word "knowingly."
The object of this amendment is to ensure that no offence will be committed unless the person knowingly discloses any information derived by him from a piece work particulars docket and that if he does not knowingly do it he will not be liable to a prosecution. The sub-section at present reads "If for the purpose of divulging a trade secret any person discloses any information ... he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £10." It may occur under this section as drafted that a person in the course of a discussion at a trade union conference might disclose information contained in a piece work particulars docket and that might be held under this loosely drafted section to make him guilty of an offence and liable to a fine. I only want to ensure that the onus of proving that he knowingly disclosed information rests on those who will do the prosecuting under the section.
The first point I want to make is that we are not proposing to change the existing law in this section at all. I do not think the Deputy can produce any case in which there was a miscarriage of justice of the kind he has suggested. In the second place, the wording of the section is quite clear. The prosecutor must show that the information was disclosed for the purpose of divulging a trade secret. In these circumstances it quite obviously must be done knowingly.
If it must be done knowingly, what is the difficulty in inserting "knowingly"?
No person could disclose information unknowingly for the purpose of divulging a trade secret.
I do not agree with the Minister. A person might reveal a trade secret in the course of a discussion.
For the purpose of divulging it?
Not necessarily for the purpose of divulging it.
That is what is in the section.
I agree, but the Minister is not to construe the section; it is the courts will construe the section. The Minister said that something cannot be disclosed for the purpose of divulging a trade secret unless it is done knowingly. In view of that statement, there is a good case for putting in "knowingly disclosed," and "knowingly disclosed" is a term not unknown to the law. The Minister says this is taken from the existing Factory Acts. But even that is not a hall-mark of perfection—the fact that the Minister relies on a British Factory Act as being the last thing.
It means that the section has already been interpreted.
I move amendment No. 47:—
Before sub-section (2) to insert the following sub-section:—
It shall be lawful for a duly authorised representative of a trade union of which any worker or outworker is for the time being a member to attend in or at an industrial undertaking where such worker is employed for the purpose of checking the reckoning by the employer of such worker of the amount of work done and the result of such reckoning and every person who obstructs or interferes with such representative as aforesaid shall be guilty of an offence under this section.
In this amendment it is sought to give a representative of the worker the right to check the allocation of work and the allocation of wages for the purpose of ensuring that the worker is not deprived of any remuneration to which he may be entitled, and the provision which it is sought by this amendment to insert in the Bill is not unknown to the law. There is in operation at present the Coal Mines Act, 1887, one of the sections of which provides that a coal miner is entitled to appoint a check weigher to attend when the coal which he mines is being weighed by the employer or a person on behalf of the employer. As a matter of fact, it was that Act which created the check weighing class in the coal mining industry. In this case it is sought, whenever an occasion may arise on which the method of remunerating the worker may be questioned on the ground that the worker is being deprived of his legitimate rights, to give a representative of that worker an opportunity of attending at the industrial undertaking concerned for the purpose of checking the reckoning by the employer of such worker of the amount of work done and the amount of such reckoning. If the method of reckoning employed by those paying the worker is correct, there ought to be no objection to permitting a representative of the worker to inspect the method of reckoning and the results of such reckoning. It is not a right which is likely to be used very frequently, but it is desirable that a representative of the worker should be permitted to attend at the industrial undertaking in order to make sure that the worker is in fact properly paid for the work which the employer asks him to do.
Might I make the point that the only justification for an amendment of this kind would be if Deputy Norton were in a position to allege gross abuses in certain piece work trades? I think he will agree that the coal mines legislation was brought into operation only when it became manifest that a very disgusting practice had arisen in certain mines of deliberately docking men dishonestly in respect of the weight of coal they had actually hewn. The British Parliament at the time was fully satisfied that that conduct was going on and that there was no effective way of stopping it unless somebody at the scales could check the weights for the men. Unless the Deputy is in a position to allege that some similar practice is going on in some piece work trade in this country, surely no case can be made for introducing a check system of this kind. I have not the slightest doubt that if the Deputy were in a position to satisfy the House that abuses of this kind had grown up, unless the Minister was not in a position or had other means at his disposal to put an end to those abuses, the House should not consent to the amendment.
Again I would say that this section is carrying into the Bill what, in effect, is the existing law. The purpose of this section is to secure that the amount paid to the worker, where piece work is in operation, would be paid in such a way as would enable the worker himself to check the payment. The Department has undertaken the responsibility of enforcing this matter. There is no necessity for this amendment. The factory inspector will secure that these obligations are carried out by the employer.
I move amendment No. 48:—
In sub-section (1), line 36, to delete the word "six" and substitute the word "twelve."
Amendments Nos. 48, 49, 57 and 58 deal with the principle of annual leave and, therefore, might all be decided on this amendment No. 48.
I would like to draw your attention, a Chinn Comhairle, to the amendment to Section 41, in the name of Deputy Norton. It is, I suggest, in practice the same, and I would ask your ruling on it.
It is not quite the same. There is an extra point involved.
The amendment I have just moved is designed to raise the number of days annual leave, to be granted to a worker in this Bill, from six to 12 days. It is true, I think, that this is the first time that legislative effect is given to the right of the workers to annual holidays. It is also true that many workers enjoy at present annual holidays of at least six days in duration and others more than six days in duration. This, at any rate, represents an effort by the Legislature to see that such workers will be entitled, annually, to at least six days holidays. What we have got to consider, in connection with this Bill, is whether the six days provided in the section is adequate, and whether we are justified in saying that six days holidays per annum is sufficient to enable a worker to recuperate after 52 weeks' work. I think six days is altogether inadequate. The State has already admitted the inadequacy of such a short period by the fact that in other spheres of industrial activity the State already grants to its workers holidays in excess of six days.
At present, members of the Gárda Síochána receive holidays, civil servants receive holidays, and I think even soldiers get holidays. The judiciary enjoy holidays, and even this House is compelled to realise it must have a substantial holiday. Deputies are even now complaining about this Bill as something likely to interfere with the extension of the duration of their holiday. Yet when we come to deal with manual workers the State is only prepared to give six days annually. I think that period is altogether inadequate and I suggest to the Minister to accept this amendment so as to raise the period of holidays to not less than 12 days per annum. In a speech which the Minister delivered recently at some function, he talked about the value to the nation of holidays and their value to industry generally, and hoped that the period of the holidays would be increased beyond six days. There is no better way in which we can ensure that they will be increased beyond six days than by putting an amendment, providing for that increase, into this Bill. Because, as the Minister must know, if six days holidays are fixed in a Bill of this kind it will become the maximum and not the minimum. I hope the Minister, after the progressive speech he delivered at the function to which I have alluded, as to the value of holidays, will give us some evidence of the progressive viewpoint he then expressed; and the most effective way in which he could do that is to accept the amendment to raise the number of holidays from six to 12 days annually.
I should like to point out that while Deputy Norton is quite correct in stating that certain workers have holidays at the present time, I think it would be more true to say that the great bulk of the workers do not get paid for holidays at all. This Bill seeks to give the workers one week compulsorily. I entirely agree with that. At the same time, Deputy Norton has suggested that that week should be increased to 12 days with pay. I should like just merely to refer, in passing, to another section of the Bill in which he proposes to add another six days with pay. Twelve and six, according to my calculation, make 18.
The Deputy is perfectly correct.
Nearly correct. At any rate, I staggered it. There is another point, and that is the attitude of the Minister on a preceding section on what I call, in order to make it identifiable, "the sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander amendment," where Deputy Moore raised the point that a garage proprietor might find that a motor-car of one of his customers was being repaired in hours which could not be worked in his own garage by his own workmen. The Minister capped that by stating that the employee might be working as an independent contractor. I do not think sufficient publicity has been given to that aspect of the case. I think it would be a monstrous thing to say that workers are to be paid for 18 days by their employers, during which time they are to be perfectly free to work as independent contractors at the trade or calling at which they are ordinarily employed. I think that would be a monstrous state of affairs and I merely mention it to illustrate the absurd position we are getting into. I think Deputy Norton conveyed to us that he opposed the workers being allowed to work in that position during the holidays. I think he has in that way made his position absolutely clear and absolutely logical. At the same time, I think we ought to try to face the question that we are really considering here, the proposal to give a worker at least 12 days, leaving him perfectly free to work at his own trade during that time for somebody else.
I think I am entitled to adopt Deputy Dockrell's description, "monstrous and absurd suggestion," and apply it to the argument which he has put forward against what I think is the very reasonable suggestion in the amendment. If any Deputies on these benches thought that the extension of the six-day holiday period to 12 days would, in any shape or by any pretext, be utilised for the purpose of enabling workers to obtain employment during that period with other employers, they would not dream of asking for any extension of the period. We have been seeking in previous amendments to restrict workers doing what we consider more than a fair day's work and, in that way, militating against the interests of their less fortunate neighbours. We are trying to provide safeguards against the greedy worker or the greedy employer and trying to establish a fair standard of work for the various people who have to earn a living in industry. In seeking to get an extension of the holiday period to at least 12 days, we are actuated by one motive only and that is to ensure that the best possible results may be derived from the annual holiday. We believe that the best results should be obtained from the annual holiday, and it can only be made attractive to the worker by enabling him to take himself and his family away from the environment and surroundings in which he has been working during the year. We believe that he should get a period sufficiently lengthy to enable him to go to the seaside, or some district where he can relax and renew his energies for the coming year.
We suggest that a maximum period of six days is entirely inadequate to give him a reasonable chance of getting away for a holiday. If that is to be the maximum, the tendency will be for the worker to pass the six days in the immediate surroundings of his own house. The worker will simply coil up in his own neighbourhood and spend his time perhaps in more undesirable surroundings than the industrial surroundings from which he is supposed to receive a holiday. We believe that if any real benefit is to be extracted from the holiday it should be extended to such a period as will enable the worker to get out of the rut in which he has been during the year and to get away to some place where he can be re-invigorated and have his energies renewed for the coming year.
I do not think it necessary to refute the suggestion as to the possibility of a worker on holidays seeking or getting employment from another contractor. It is suggested that even on bank holidays workers would go from Deputy Dockrell to somebody else. I think that is preposterous. Work is not so teemingly abundant in this country that we can transfer ourselves from one employer to another at a moment's notice. There are too many people unemployed to allow of that and it does not call for any refutation whatever. I suggest that the Minister should consider this a fair amendment, if he appreciates the value of a holiday to workers. If he desires that the workers should derive benefit from their holidays I believe it is a real necessity that the period should be extended as suggested in the amendment. It is a necessity alike in the interests of workers and employers. It is not going to grind too severely on anybody and if the annual holiday is going to achieve its purpose at all it can be better secured by 12 days than six.
Subject to any argument the Minister may have put forward in this matter, my strong inclination is to support Deputy Norton's amendment. I agree with him that a period of 12 days is necessary to make a holiday a real holiday. It is, I know, the experience of some business firms who give holidays at present to their workers that when the workers get them they do not know how to use them. The holiday habit has not been sufficiently inculcated. I have heard cases of men, in supposed enjoyment of holidays, who find nothing better to do than to go out and sit all day in the Phoenix Park.
Other important functionaries sat there too until they were dislodged and they were substantially paid for it.
I think that the annual vacation habit is one that the workers will have to be educated up to, and I think they will be far more easily educated up to it by a 12-day period than by a six-day period. As clerks in banks and boys of that description get at least 12 days, I do not see why the worker under this Bill should not get a similar period. It is a little unfair of Deputy Keyes to talk of a maximum period of six days because this Bill does not lay down a maximum period but a minimum period. Subject, as I say, to any argument the Minister may have to put forward that I have not yet heard, my inclination would be to fix the minimum period at 12 days. I am inclined to agree with Deputy Keyes that the view expressed by Deputy Dockrell that men who go on holidays would occupy themselves in working at their own trade, on their own or for some other employer, is a little fantastic or, at any rate, would become fantastic in the course of time once the holiday habit had been established. In any case the next amendment by Deputy Norton provides for that possible danger by prohibiting them from undertaking such work. In fact, to my mind, the next amendment goes a great deal too far, but we shall talk about that when we reach it. I would appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment as it seems to me that 12 days is only a reasonable holiday period for industrial workers.
This is the first time that a provision has been embodied in legislation to secure for industrial workers holidays with pay. It has never been done before, and it is entirely incorrect to assume that any substantial number of workers of the class covered by this Bill are, in fact, getting holidays at the present time. The number of such workers getting holidays at the present time is a small proportion of the total number employed in occupations coming within the scope of the Bill. We are, therefore, embarking upon a new development which is going to mean, for a very large number of workers, holidays with pay for the first time in their lives. We do not quite know what this is going to involve. We have endeavoured to ascertain from certain individual firms what the provisions of this section are going to involve for them in the matter of additional costs. It is not quite possible to see clearly what the result will be on the general level of prices and the general level of industrial costs. For some firms it is going to be quite considerable. For others it will not be so considerable. I said, as Deputy Norton reminded me, on an occasion some time ago, that I hoped in due course a week's holidays will be not the maximum but the minimum for all workers. I would be prepared to consider an amendment to the Bill so that at a later stage the statutory minimum might be increased without the necessity for new legislation, or bringing into this section the principle of Section 42 to provide for the making of a regulation where there was an agreement between the majority of employers and employees in any industry for a longer holiday period, and to make that longer holiday period compulsory upon all persons engaged in the industry. But, I think it would be unwise at this stage to commit ourselves to the idea of a longer holiday than six days with pay without quite knowing what the effect is going to be upon industry. Certain big concerns, for instance, the railways, are going to be involved in substantial additional cost by this one week's holidays.
Have they not holidays already?
Not the shop-workers.
All the operatives have.
The class of railway workers covered by this Bill have no holidays at present. The traffic staffs, who do not come within the terms of this Bill, have a week's holidays now. One employer, with whom I discussed the matter yesterday, has forestalled the Bill by providing a week's holidays this year for all his workers. He is doing that for the first time now. He told me that he estimates it is going to cost him £1,000, and for that particular employer that is a considerable addition to his costs. The effect of this proposal on other employers will vary, but, nevertheless, in every case the additional cost will not be inconsiderable. I would like very much to see this provision, providing for six days' holidays, in operation for some time before deciding to increase it, although at a later period we may amend the Bill in the manner we have suggested, either by providing for a general increase in the holiday period by resolution of the Dáil implementing regulations made under the Bill or for a longer holiday in a particular industry where agreement was arrived at between both parties in the industry for a longer holiday, and where it was decided to make the desire of the majority generally applicable.
There are, perhaps, some industrial occupations in which longer holidays operate at the present time, but I do not think there are many of them. There is nothing, of course, in this Bill to restrict the power of an employer to give a longer holiday than six days for which provision is made. There will be some necessity to provide in the measure that a worker on holidays secured under this section will not be allowed to take other employment for wages during his holiday period. Such a provision is not in the Bill, and my objection to it is the difficulty of enforcement. I see that difficulty. It was referred to on a previous amendment moved by Deputy Dockrell and supported by Deputy Norton. It is undesirable, as a general rule, to have provisions in legislation that you do not see your way clearly to make effective. My objection to the insertion of an amendment of that kind is that I cannot see my way clearly to make it effective. Nevertheless, there is probably a case for having such a provision inserted so that we can get if not 100 per cent. compliance with it, at least the maximum which our administrative machine will make possible. I do not think the dangers that workers, on statutory holidays, would work for wages in some other occupation or in the same occupation for some other employer is very great, but it is obviously something that must be provided against if we can find an effective means of doing so.
I am personally in complete sympathy with the idea that six days is not a very long holiday period for workers who have been engaged continuously in industrial occupations for the previous 12 months, but I think it would be unwise to go too fast in matters of this kind until we see precisely what the effects of the measure are going to be. The proposal in the Bill is that we should start off with a new provision of a six days' minimum holiday period, with pay, for all industrial workers, I would be very reluctant to go beyond that until we have some experience of how the six-day period is going to work out in the matter of industrial costs and prices.
The Minister wants to remind us that he is assuming the rôle of pioneer in this matter. He is a very poor pioneer. He has not reached the sourdough stage that they talk about in Klondyke. He reminds us that this provision of holidays for workers has not been in operation up to the present. Is that any reason why it should not be introduced now for this class of workers? Is it inherently right that after 12 months' grind in an industrial occupation they should get 12 days free to recuperate? Does the Minister think that the loss to industry is to be the over-riding consideration? He spoke of the sum of money that would be lost to industry by giving to workers a holiday period, but would not that be more than counterbalanced by the fresh energy and enthusiasm that these workers would bring back to their employment? Does he think that their dragging on from day to day in grime and dust is going to be very useful to industry? He knows well that it will not be. He also knows perfectly well that people in less arduous occupations get a much longer holiday than 12 days. Surely, if it is inherently right to give these people a holiday, it is also inherently right to give a decent holiday to industrial workers. Deputy Dockrell seems to think that the workers' idea of a holiday is a busman's holiday.
I did not say that.
Mr. Hogan
The Deputy seems to think that, as soon as industrial workers get released for holidays, they are going to take up work some place else during that period. That is not the working man's idea of a holiday, and the Deputy need not have any fears on that point at all. If a workman gets a decent holiday period he is going to have a holiday and to enjoy himself. But can a worker enjoy himself if he is only given six days? My submission is that he cannot, because most of the period will be taken up in going away to some place for his holiday and returning. It is silly to suggest that six days will enable him to enjoy himself and to recuperate. The Minister has not put forward one solitary argument as to why there should be this differentiation between the worst treated class in industrial occupations and people in other occupations with much longer holidays. If there is going to be a loss to industry, why should the whole burden be put on the industrial worker? Why should he be asked to suffer for what is his natural right, to have a free period in which to recuperate and to enable him to come back to his work with fresh energy and enthusiasm? Will the Minister say why there should not be some other means of recouping industry except at the expense of the wage earner.
The Deputy does not seem to appreciate the point I made. What I fear may happen in any industry where costs are increased unduly by the holiday provision is that there may be a falling off in employment, and that unemployment may be created in consequence.
Mr. Hogan
Surely the Minister is not serious in suggesting that if workers get 12 days' holidays there is going to be an appreciable falling off in employment?
There might be.
Mr. Hogan
I suggest it is more likely that there will be an increase in employment. These industrial workers will have to be replaced during their holiday period, and that almost certainly is going to mean increased employment. The Minister has not advanced one solitary argument against the amendment, and the sooner that he discards the mantle of the pioneer the better, and say that he believes it is not inherently right to give workers a decent holiday. The Minister should face up to the position as to whether he thinks it is inherently right that they should have a holiday? If he thinks that it is, then it should be done and done at once. If he thinks that it is not, then, of course, that is an admission that we are as near as we can be to the slave state, so far as the manual worker and the industrial worker are concerned: that they are not entitled to holidays and that their nose should be kept to the grinding stone. If the Minister will face up to the position and say that it is not inherently right that the industrial worker should not get 12 days' holidays to enable him to recuperate after 12 months' continuous labour, so that he may be able to build up fresh energy and enthusiasm for his work, then we will know where we are. Notwithstanding Deputy Dockrell's idea that they are going to enjoy a busman's holiday, that is not the position, and the Minister ought to say so.
It goes without saying that this reform would be of no value unless it carried with it a proviso that there was to be no reduction of wages.
That is dealt with elsewhere.
Yes, and it does mean that this reform is going to constitute a charge on the costs of industry. It would be a cruel kindness to improve the conditions of labour of men to a point which would destroy the business in which they are engaged. We have got to bear in mind that we have in this country certain industries which give exceptionally good employment. They have managed to keep the standard of employment very high and, at the same time, successfully to compete in the markets of the world. If we go too far in an endeavour arbitrarily to improve the conditions of labour in these factories, what we may do is smash up the factories altogether. It may well be that the operatives in these factories have elected to take a high level of wages without holidays, rather than a comparatively low rate of wages with holidays; they may have elected to take a high level of wages and enjoy three weeks' holidays without pay, rather than a comparatively low rate of wages and holidays with pay. When you contemplate reforms of this character you should guard against going so far as would injure good employment in factories where the increased cost might destroy their competitive power in the markets of the world. In these cases, Geneva is the only effective place where one can hope to carry through these reforms by getting them accepted in the same industries in other parts of the world.
I want to draw the Minister's attention to a middle course which, I think, he should consider. Where you have factories enjoying either monopolies or tariffs to the extent of 70 per cent., 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. which give them exclusive right to the home market, then, I think, the Minister is entitled to set the standard of conditions which he requires for the operatives in these factories very high. He is entitled to insist that the profits which he makes available to the enterprise by the grant of monopoly, prohibition or tariff be spread over both the owners of the industry and the operatives therein. Deputy McGilligan argued that case last night in connection with the proposal of Deputy Norton to restrict the number of persons who should be employed below a certain rate of wage. Deputy McGilligan pointed out that, if that were made of universal application, it might be dangerous, as you might destroy the employment altogether but, in the cases of industries enjoying prohibitive tariffs or monopolies, he argued that it would be perfectly legitimate to provide that nobody, or only a very small number, should be employed below a certain wage rate. The Minister has announced his intention to take all the steps necessary by way of quota, tariff or prohibition to establish industries in this country. He should not only aim at the establishment of industries but he should aim at their establishment under ideal conditions. He ought to make these industries types of what he believes industries ought to be and he should tell the persons who are enjoying the benefit of these monopolies that they should divide that benefit fairly with the men who are working for them. He should say to the people who enjoy these monopolies: "I want you to co-operate with me in setting up in the country a series of examples of what we conceive to be the ideal form of industry and what we would have all industry if our voice could prevail at the International Labour Office at Geneva." If Deputy Norton would accept such a middle course, I do not think the Government could resist it. We may not be able to spread this reform over a very wide field but if we can establish it in a few protected factories in which there is no danger of throwing men out of employment through imprudent Utopianism—for example, where the factory is absolutely hedged round with protection and where the same amount of employment will be given as before— we will be able to have a few samples of what we would regard as ideal industrial conditions. It may not be that we will all be prepared to go as far as the Labour Party would go as regards the relations between employer and employed but we would get better conditions by the adoption of this middle course than those which obtain in monopolistic industries.
It would not be quite so easy as Deputy Dillon thinks to establish the model factories of which he speaks. A question which immediately arises is: Would the Minister not have to take power to choose the staffs of such concerns? Is the Minister going to allow a certain number of people, selected at random or because they were favourites of the person in control of the monopoly, to enjoy such privileges? Surely, that would be a fruitful source of discontent. If a certain number of men found that their comrades employed in monopolistic industries were working under conditions, envious to them in their attractiveness, they would not agree that admission to such work should be in the hands of an individual without public responsibility.
The Deputy is on the slippery slope again.
Perhaps, but there is no denying that that difficulty would arise. In my opinion, the Minister's proposal is a fair proposal. Deputy Hogan makes the mistake of thinking that when the Minister proposes to fix six days as the holiday, that will be the maximum or even the average holiday to be allowed.
Mr. Hogan
Does not the Deputy know that the minimum always becomes the maximum in these cases?
Not at all. I think that there is a great tendency to worship legislative effect in these matters. If the legislature goes so far as to establish a principle, surely there ought to be room for voluntary effort to extend that principle so far as it is desirable to go. Why worship State interference in every point of detail? There should always be something left for outside negotiation. In this case the adoption of Deputy Norton's proposal would be a leap in the dark, not only for those in charge of industry, but might be a very big leap in the dark for the workers involved. Not so many years ago the employees of a very big concern, not far from here, petitioned the directors that they should not be compelled to take holidays.
Like the embroidery workers last night, who rebelled because their wages were increased!
No. This was a very big concern, and so great was the discomfort during the hot season of the year, in having to work with a depleted staff that they petitioned the directors not to be compelled to take holidays.
Mr. Hogan
The weather is bad now, and they need not worry.
Was it proposed that the workers should have holidays without pay?
No, that they should not have any holidays.
Does the Deputy seriously tell the House that a body of workers, who had full pay, petitioned the directors to withdraw the holidays with full pay, or was it that they were taking two weeks holidays without pay and expressed the desire to work continuously?
The employees were getting over two, and in some cases three weeks holidays with full pay, and in addition certain privileges associated with the nature of their employment.
Is that an industrial undertaking?
No. It was a big office and these were clerical workers.
Will the Deputy bring that case to the notice of the Minister in the new Bill, so as to make sure that these workers will not be compelled to take holidays?
My only point about it is this, that to accept the amendment of Deputy Norton might be a leap in the dark, which might not eventually be satisfactory to the workers. The Minister has offered to meet the Deputy, to the extent of agreeing to take power to extend the compulsory period on certain conditions, with the agreement of the Dáil. I think that is a very fair arrangement, and I suggest that the Deputy should not press the amendment.
Deputy Moore, and, to a lesser extent, Deputy Dillon, seem to assume wrongly in their innocence, I think, that employers on whose behalf they are pleading——
Not at all.
—— are always guided by principles of moral justice, and that there is no necessity for intervention by the State in cases of this kind. I welcome the Bill, and particularly this section, as improving existing conditions. I welcome particularly the power to deal with bad employers in unorganised industries. It is to the interest of good employers that treat their staffs decently in regard to wages, holidays and other conditions of service, that bad employers should be brought up to the minimum standard laid down by decent employers. It is my regret that trade unions in this country are not powerful enough at present to compel bad employers to do the right thing by the usual persuasive methods adopted by trade unions. I would not have intervened but that the Minister appeared to be under a wrong impression or he would have met Deputy Hogan. He seems to assume that an extension of the holiday period in the case of industries which now provide a reasonable holiday for their employees will not increase employment. I wonder would the Minister, in many of the talks that he has with railway directors and general managers, make inquiries as to the cost which holidays involved this year on the Free State railways, by the provision of additional employment in order to relieve men on leave with pay. I hope it will not amaze him when he learns the extent to which employment is provided on the Free State railways in that respect.
Obviously, there is a difference between employees in that service and in workshops. They can shut the workshops down for a week.
I do not know why the railways do not provide holidays for the shops staff in the same way as they provide holidays and pay for the traffic staffs. I dare say it is because employment in that respect is regarded as casual and not continuous. I am not sure. That is no reason why the majority of the railway staffs should have holidays without pay and a small section no holidays at all. At the same time many of the shops staff are working overtime to the extent of 40 or 50 hours a week. The only places where holidays are provided with pay are in certain public corporations, State services and other public services, including Guinness' brewery, where there is no union or legislation to compel them to do so. I dare say conditions in Guinness' brewery in regard to the wages and holidays allowed the staff, as well as other privileges, are better than in any other company in this country. I do not think the very limited privilege that the Minister is going to provide for the workers in this Bill will in any way influence other concerns to close their concerns so as to make the holiday privileges any better than those provided by this Bill. I hope the Minister will realise that by extending the holiday period proposed in the Bill he is going to provide means of giving additional employment to large numbers now unemployed.
I want to intervene again to emphasise, despite what Deputy Hogan said, the fact that we are taking the initiative in legislation of this kind. I may not come up to Deputy Hogan's ideal as a pioneer, but the fact is, this is a pioneer effort, and that even the International Labour Conference has not yet proposed any international convention for general adoption providing for holidays with pay in industrial employment. This year, for the first time, they are beginning to move in the matter, and the procedure of questionnaires is being followed, which may or may not be followed by a proposal for a convention for adoption next year or the following year. What that convention is going to provide for, I cannot say. I cannot say whether it will be adopted or not, but we are taking the risk in this country of anticipating that development at Geneva, and again in other countries along the same lines. Remember that, to a large extent, we are engaged in export business in competition with countries that have not got, and are not proposing to have legislation of this kind. The action taken here may result in forcing up the general level of prices, and a higher level of industrial costs may, in a large measure, affect our export efficiency. I agree that many of the things we have done may have that effect already, but, at least, we know where we are going. I propose that we should introduce into this Bill, for the first time, provision for six days holidays, and to watch the effect and, at the same time, watch the action taken at Geneva to secure international agreement in doing the same thing. If it should happen—and I do not anticipate it— that the International Labour Office should get general agreement for a longer holiday I think this country will be the first to ratify it, and certainly is in a better position to implement it than any other country, because we will have legislative basis for our action. That situation cannot possibly arise for some time yet.
There is another point I want to stress, and I propose to do so at this stage, because it is going to arise again and again in relation to this Bill, and the other Bills which I have mentioned. In legislation dealing with conditions of employment you have got to fix minimum standards. It is unfair to go and say that the minimum standard fixed in legislation represents the Government's idea of what the maximum standard should be. If that type of criticism of these measures is to be anticipated, then it is not going to facilitate their introduction. The same applies to all labour legislation or regulations made under various Statutes to control conditions. The only effective thing the Government can do is to fix the minimum and, in fixing the minimum standard, it is not expressing the opinion as to what the normal or maximum standard should be. Here we are proposing to fix the minimum obligation upon employers to give six days holidays with pay. If existing employers are giving a longer period there is nothing in this Bill to prevent them. If employers, in agreement with trade unions, propose to give longer periods of holidays, there is nothing in this Bill to prevent them. On the contrary, by fixing a statutory obligation on employers to give a period of holidays, we are making possible the way to agreements of that kind between employers and the workers' representatives, providing for longer periods of holidays in particular industries. I would be quite prepared to contemplate the bringing into this section of the principles contained in Section 42 and thus providing a principle by which agreements of that kind could be made enforceable on all employers in the same industries. I think, however, that it would be a mistake for us to go beyond the provisions of this Bill in prescribing the minimum holiday period in industry until we have had some experience of its operation.
It seems to me that the competitive risk to those who are affected by this amendment is exaggerated both by the Minister and Deputy Dillon, but particularly by the Minister. The Minister says that the people who would be affected by this amendment are largely engaged in export.
I did not say that, I said that any action taken by us that would have the effect of increasing prices all round would affect our export trade.
What export trade has the Minister in mind?
Well, agriculture, for one.
I suggest to the Minister and to the House that, in so far as those who are responsible for the greater part of our industrial exports are concerned, they already give at least as good terms as are proposed by Deputy Norton, and, so far as the majority of our industrial undertakings are concerned, it is purely for the home market that they are catering. I suggest that, in that respect, we are in a better position and would have far less to fear from competitors than perhaps any other country in Europe. The Minister knows that the number of firms in this country engaged in industrial work, whose products are to any great extent produced for export, are not more than half-a-dozen or so.
That was not my argument at all.
Whether that was the Minister's argument or not, the Minister knows that that is a fact. My point is that that view of the matter is exaggerated, that the question of producing goods for export does not exist in this country to the same extent at all as it does in other countries, and that those who do compete with people outside are those who give the best terms in this respect. My view is that the vast majority of those who would be concerned by Deputy Norton's amendment are those who are producing solely for the home market. I think that that bogey of this provision making it impossible to compete with others is very much exaggerated.
In his first speech the Minister talked about the effect of this amendment on what he described as the level of costs. Has the Minister any idea as to what the cost of the Bill will be on employers in respect of holidays, or has he any estimate of the cost under the amendment?
No. That is precisely my point—that we have not the information.
Well, I shall try to give some information to the Minister in a moment. At all events, however, I believe that the continuance in an industry, notwithstanding the fact that holidays are granted to the staff, of the provision of those holidays, results in additional employment being given to persons who are not normally employed in the industry, through the substitution of staffs. The railways, for instance, are an example of this, and State services are an example in another respect. So that the provision of a greater span of holidays will provide an opportunity for a greater number of persons getting temporary employment in those industries, and even to that extent it would help to swell the Minister's statistics with regard to the increasing employment in the country. The Minister says that this amendment will have a considerable effect on the level of cost. When we are talking about the level of cost, let us remember that industry generally is paying £1,600,000 per annum to maintain 130,000 workers who are unemployed. I think it would be preferable from the point of view of industry and from the point of view of the physique and independence of the nation, that if a cost is going to be imposed on industry, it is going to be imposed in an effort to provide employment for additional persons during certain periods of the year. At present we are spending £1,600,000 on unemployment assistance. I agree that it is absolutely necessary because persons cannot be allowed to be hungry or persons cannot be allowed to starve. Here is a case, however, in which the additional cost will have the effect at least of putting certain persons into industry during the period of holidays, and if any additional cost on industry is justified, it is surely justified when the object is so laudable as that. The Minister talked about the effect of this amendment, if carried, on our export trade, and, in clarifying that remark, he said that it would have an effect on agriculture.
I said that if it resulted in higher prices it would affect our exports. That is self-evident.
It may be self-evident to the Minister, but it is not self-evident to me. The profundity of the Minister's argument is too deep for me. Perhaps he would enlighten us. The Minister has not yet told the House in what way this will affect our export trade. Look at the industries in which the twelve days' holiday will apply. When we look at the category of trades, as set out in the Bill, that are likely to be affected, we see that the employers in these particular industries have a tariff wall that you cannot look over. We are going to build up high tariff walls for them, and inside these walls we are going, at snail's pace, to extract from such protected employers the merest modicum of better social conditions for the workers. The Minister, I think, has ignored the benefits which a reasonable holiday would have on the health of the workers. I suggest that, when considering this amendment, the Minister might take into consideration the effect that twelve days' holidays will have on the health of the workers: that it will mean a better nation at present and also a better nation ultimately: that it will mean less pressure on the hospitals and less early graves, and that, generally, it will have the effect of building up a much more vigorous type of industrial worker than we have at present. The Minister's chief resistance to this amendment is based on a belief that the cost to employers will be considerable and that the cost to the community generally will be considerable in the form of high prices.
I said that we have no information.
Well, let us try to get information in some way. I should have thought that the Minister's own Department would have got some information for him on this matter. There is a simple way in which we can test, in a rough and ready way, what is the cost of six days' holidays and 12 days' holidays. Under the Bill, it is proposed to grant the worker one day's holiday for every two months he works with an employer. In one month, a worker would work, on the basis of a 48-hour week, something over 200 hours and in two months, he would work something over 400 hours for an employer. In this Bill, it is proposed that in respect of eight of those hours he should be paid.
At the present time he gets no holidays.
Listen to the argument. The Minister has no information and I want to give him some. He ought to have brought some information from his Department.
They are all clever men but not prophets.
The Minister controls the Department of statistics which issues reams of stuff which nobody reads.
You would be much better off if you did read it.
I suggest that the Minister might spend a week-end in that Department himself and find out the cost of this concession to the workers. In any case, I am going to insist on the Minister listening to this argument. On the basis of a 48-hour week, the worker will work 400 hours for an employer and the provision in this Bill is to pay him for holidays in respect of eight hours. In other words, he is going to be paid at the employer's expense for 2 per cent. of the hours for which he works. That is the cost to the employer. Out of the 400 hours, as a minimum which the worker works, he is going to be paid for 2 per cent. of the hours which he does not work. That is the cost to the employer.
The Deputy is forgetting public holidays and the like.
You cannot discuss that on this section.
I do not suggest that we need discuss it; but for the purpose of the calculation which the Deputy is making——
We will take it in, for argument's sake. Under that calculation, the worker will be paid 2 per cent. extra for the time he worked for the employer in a period of two months and under this amendment, by which we seek to give the workers 12 days annually, he would work for 200 hours per month for his employer and get eight hours paid holidays in respect of that month. In that case, the cost to the employer would be 4 per cent. Let us assume that this Bill passes with the worker getting the six days' holidays provided in the Bill and six days paid Bank holidays. That is 12 days and he is virtually in the position of the worker who works 200 hours a month for an employer and is paid for eight hours' holidays in that month. The cost in that case is not more than 4 per cent. of the time of the worker per the period calculated. I think these are rather reliable figures. I should like to hear the Minister challenge them and tell us in what way they are wrong. This is the infinitesimal cost that is resisted by the Minister with such considerable vigour.
At the present time, we all know that there are progressive firms which grant to their workers holidays, even in excess of the low minimum provided for in this Bill and it is rather noteworthy that the firm which is progressive, from the point of view of paying reasonable rates of wages and granting reasonable holidays to the workers, is the most successful firm in the industry. Usually the poverty-stricken mentality displayed in industry which takes the form of low wages and no holidays, is that of the firm which is never really a success in industry and which can only hold on by continuing that type of employment and squealing for 365 days for more and still more tariffs. There are firms, as I said, which grant holidays to their workers, and there are firms which do not grant any holidays to their workers. The firm which refuses to grant holidays in that instance is a firm which is competing on unfair terms with firms in which holidays are granted to the workers, and even under this Bill there will be an inequality in that respect, but there is less likely to be any inequality if the minimum number of days fixed in this Bill is increased from six to 12.
The Minister seemed to plume himself unduly on our position here in relation to holidays as compared with elsewhere. I should like to say to the Minister—and I think his own Department will confirm it if they make inquiries—that in relation to holidays, we are very much behind the general position on the Continent of Europe. It may be true that there is no convention regulating by legislation the statutory provision for holidays there, but it is also true that there is a much wider appreciation on the Continent of the value of holidays to the workers than in this country, and far from being able to boast that we are in advance of continental countries in that respect, I venture to say that any kind of statistics produced from continental resources in that respect will show that we are not as far advanced in the matter of holidays as continental countries are. Anybody who is any way familiar in a general way with the industrial position in these countries knows that there is much greater emphasis on the value of holidays there than in this country.
If you take any kind of public service, either with local authorities or in State employment—and in that respect, I am sure, there are particulars in the Minister's office of the position in continental countries—and compare the information contained in those statistics, it will be found that in practically every country in Europe the Central Government and municipalities grant to their employees a scale of holidays very much in excess of what is observed in this country. While there is no legislative provision in continental countries that I know of for the granting of paid holidays to workers in industry, the fact remains that there are a considerable number of workers in such industries on the Continent in which holidays are granted on a scale much in excess of what is granted here.
The Minister has offered to meet this by bringing holidays in under Section 42. I do not think that is an effective way of meeting the suggestion made in this amendment. The object of the amendment is clearly to provide for a minimum 12 days annually for each worker in industry. Under Section 42, any employer or group of employers could decline to grant 12 days holidays and render it impossible to register the minimum of 12 days in that connection. The amendment, therefore, is much preferable to the suggestion made by the Minister, inasmuch as it provides for a statutory minimum of 12 working days and, having regard to the rough calculation of cost which I made, I do not think the Minister need be in any way fearful of the consequences which will follow from the adoption of this amendment.
Listening to the debate, one would think that this Bill covered all the people who worked. As I understand the country generally, 70 per cent. of it represents agriculture. What is the effect of those holidays on agricultural labourers throughout the country to-day? If we are to develop the country agriculturally, we ought to encourage agricultural labourers, but what do we find? We find holidays here which are likely to increase prices and which are likely to be considered by the Prices Commission and raise the cost of living to these people. The result is that they are anxious to get from where they are into the sheltered occupations. That is where we are driving. I should like to know is this country fully industrialised yet? If we go on with measures like this, what is likely to be the view of people who might invest money in new factories in this country? Do the people who advocate a twelve-day holiday period realise that such measures might stop employment instead of creating it? This is the first country in Europe to try it. I would ask people who talk about this holiday period to consider that 75 per cent. of the population is agricultural, and that their cost of living is likely to be increased by this measure.
The arguments of Deputy Victory would surely be arguments against tariffs altogether?
No.
The Deputy does not intend to develop that argument?
I do not intend to develop it, but it appears to me that that is where his argument leads to. I suggest that if we have embarked, as we have, on a policy of building up domestic enterprise by the aid of immensely high tariffs, we must not do as Deputy Victory would apparently think right, and that is, ignore the interests of the working people engaged in those industries, and allow the employers in those industries to make unlimited profits. There is no legislation limiting the profits that the capitalists can make in any of those new industries, and it seems to me that, as we have embarked on a policy of building up those industries by means of high tariffs, the duty is imposed upon us of seeing that the employees have proper conditions. While I do agree that the Minister deserves our congratulations for his pioneering spirit in, at any rate, being among those who have, for the first time, made a holiday period compulsory, I see no reason why we should not go the length of making it a real holiday period, and not a sham one. I, therefore, feel in no way inclined to withdraw my support of Deputy Norton's amendment.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
Níl
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davin, William.
- Everett, James.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Norton, William.
I beg to move amendment No. 50:—
Before sub-section (5) to insert the following new sub-sections:—
(5) An interruption in the performance of work in an industrial undertaking which is due to sickness, accident, temporary unemployment or the calling up of a worker for military service shall not be deemed to constitute an interruption in the employment on account of which the right of the worker to annual leave is forfeited or restricted.
(6) A worker while on his annual leave shall not perform work for remuneration in the service of the employer of such worker or in any other employment whatever. Every person who acts contrary to the provisions of this sub-section shall be guilty of an offence under this section.
(7) The period during which a worker was in the employment of the employer before the passing of this Act shall be taken into account for the purpose of ascertaining in respect of such worker the date of the commencement of the employment year.
(8) Continuity of employment shall be assumed when the heirs, successors or assigns of an employer in the undertaking continues the employment of any worker or where the worker is re-employed by his former employer within three months after the termination of a contract of employment.
(9) Where in any industrial undertaking owing to shortage of work the hours of employment have been reduced in relation to any worker below the number of hours of work normally observed in such industrial undertaking the amount of salary or wages payable to any such worker in accordance with the provisions of this section shall be assessed on the basis of the remuneration which would have been so payable for full time work.
(10) Every employer to whom this section applies shall keep in the prescribed form a register of the persons in his employment to whom this Act applies for the purpose of showing in respect of each of such persons the date on which the annual leave commences and terminates.
With the permission of the Chair, I would like to take the proposed six sub-sections separately. It is quite possible the Minister may accept some, while he might not be so enthusiastic about others.
The Deputy will have to discuss the whole amendment.
I would be quite prepared to agree to the Deputy's suggestion. The Deputy proposes to add six new sub-sections to this section, dealing with different points.
The Deputy may discuss them separately, but he cannot get a separate decision. If the Minister desires to accept any of the proposed new sub-sections, he can embody them in a subsequent amendment.
The object of the proposed new sub-section (5) is to ensure that in calculating the period of employment of a worker for the purpose of determining the annual leave to which he is entitled, an interruption in the performance of his work due to sickness, accident, temporary employment or the calling up of the worker for military service shall not be deemed to constitute an interruption of the employment. I think the amendment is a reasonable one, and I hope the Minister will agree to accept it, because it observes in substance the continuity of employment. If a person is passing through a period of sickness, suffers from an accident or is on military service, it is generally recognised that he is still in the employment of the firm with which he is associated, and may resume work when his sickness is over, when the effects of his accident have worn away or when he has completed his military service. I think the State officially recognises the right of the worker to resume his normal employment on his return from military duty.
It will be necessary to have in the Bill a definition of continuous employment, and I am prepared to consider what is the best form of definition to get. There will be certain difficulties in that regard, but I will produce a proposal in that respect on the next stage of the Bill.
The Minister has answered one point raised by Deputy Norton. I notice in sub-section 5 that the calling up of a worker for military service shall not be deemed to constitute an interruption in the employment on account of which the right of the worker to annual leave is forfeited or restricted. Does that mean that the employer will have to pay the employee for holidays while he was engaged on military service?
No. I think Deputy Norton's point is this, that if a worker is entitled to a week's holidays after 12 months' continuous service, his continuity of service will not be deemed to have been interrupted merely because the worker was absent for some days on training as a reservist, or as a member of the Volunteer Force.
I think that is perfectly fair. At the same time, I do not want to see that he is let in for paying for holidays that would have accrued during the time that he was on military service. That is the point I am on. I entirely support Deputy Norton with regard to sub-section (6).
We have not come to that yet; we are discussing them separately.
In regard to sub-section (5), the Minister says he intends to take steps at a later stage——
To get a definition of continuous employment.
I will ask him to bear in mind that he will want to protect himself against an evil system that grew up under the land law, and that is the 11-months' system. The land law, the Minister will remember, prescribed that if a person was continuously a tenant of property for over a year he got a certain statutory claim and a coach-and-four were driven through that by instituting the 11-months' system.
Sub-section (4) of section 20 is an adequate safeguard against that.
The Minister should take steps to provide that a system will not grow up amongst bad employers of employing a man for nine months, leaving him off for a fortnight or three weeks and then getting another nine months' contract of service with him. In that way, the whole purpose of this part of the Bill will be defeated.
Sub-section (6) is moved in order to ensure that the worker, while on his annual leave, shall not perform work for remuneration in the service of the employer of such worker or in any other employment whatsoever. It makes it an offence for any person to act contrary to the provisions of that sub-section. In this Bill we are definitely providing six days' holidays with pay for workers engaged in the industries covered by the Bill and we do that for the purpose of social advantage and social advancement. If we think it is desirable the workers should have six days' holidays, we ought to make sure they get them for the purpose of recuperation and not for the purpose of transferring their industrial activities from the employer by whom they are employed to some other employer, possibly in competition with the employer who is paying them for their holidays. I think it is desirable to have that restriction on workers while they are on holidays so as to ensure that they will use the holidays beneficially from the point of view of their health and to ensure that the intention of the Legislature in granting holidays for the improvement of the worker's health and recuperation from industrial toil will be fully safeguarded.
I consider it is desirable to have some such provision as this in the Bill, although the difficulty of making it effective must not be ignored. It will be very hard to enforce the provision that the worker must not take employment with any other employer, but probably it is desirable to have that requirement in the Bill.
I suggest that it is not desirable at all. I agree that it is desirable that an employee should not, while on holiday, do work of the same kind as he ordinarily does. But it is a holiday to a man sometimes to engage in work different from what he has been doing. I see no reason why a man working indoor ordinarily would not have the best of holidays by working in the open air, and I do not see why he should not be allowed to do so.
In competition with unemployed workers?
Not necessarily; there are sometimes seasonal occupations for which there are not enough persons available.
What has the Deputy in mind?
A Deputy behind me says harvesting. In England one might mention hop-picking; there people from the workshops go out and engage in hop-picking. Other occupations may arise in this country. Deputy Norton's amendment seems to me to go absurdly far—that a person on holiday is not to engage in any employment whatever. It would even debar a man from sitting down and writing a play.
Surely that is not an employment?
I should certainly think it is.
At any rate, there is good reason for restricting some persons from writing plays.
I do not know that there are not sufficient restrictions already. The restriction of having the play produced is sufficient. Perhaps too many plays are produced that should not be written at all.
The amendment only applies to persons who get holidays under this Bill.
The man who gets a holiday under this Bill may be a man whose life-long dream has been to write a play.
This will not prevent Patrick MacGill from writing a play.
In many countries it is quite usual for people in industrial employment to go out during their holidays and do quite different sorts of work. That may be one of the most pleasant and amusing ways available to them to spend their holidays. The whole object of the holiday business is to give people a complete change of outlook. I do not want the person on holiday to spend his time going to the cinema or sitting in Stephen's Green or in the Phoenix Park. It would be well if he did something quite different from his ordinary work, and if he did it would probably be the most refreshing holiday he could have. I suggest that the restriction should be merely to debar a man engaging in the same kind of employment as that to which he has been accustomed.
I think the Minister is not to be envied in being asked to frame an amendment which would meet the objections raised. It is very difficult to curtail the activities of people on holidays. A considerable number of young workers in Dublin are natives of the country districts and when they get holidays they hie to the country. They will mostly lend a hand at harvesting work. Pursuing these people to find out whether they were accepting pay for any work they were doing at harvesting would be some job for the administration. Apart from the desirability altogether, I do not see how the Minister is going to frame a provision which will secure this.
I would like to support Deputy Norton on this amendment. I take it that the Minister has in mind the danger that he outlined on a previous discussion in the House— the danger of the worker being described as an independent contractor. I think that that position would have to be dealt with as well.
How would the Deputy deal with it?
I do not think the person on holiday ought to be allowed to work for wages and get his card stamped during one part of the day and become an independent contractor at night.
Hear, hear; the Deputy is in the wrong Party.
I am making a note of the suggestion. There is another aspect of it which I hope will not deter the Minister. He spoke about the difficulties of passing legislation and then finding that you are not able to enforce the laws. I would like to point out to the Minister that all laws cannot be enforced. I take it that if I pick somebody's pocket that is no reason, why I should not be punished if I am found out. You might as well say that because you could not detect crimes that crimes ought not to be made illegal. I would like to suggest to the Minister that he might at least make it illegal and see whether the rest of the country could not assist in the detection of the illegalities. I support amendment 50, sub-section (6).
This amendment is governed mainly by the fact that the worker performs service for remuneration. Subject to that proviso, I think we could agree with Deputy MacDermot that it would be a useful change for an industrial worker to engage in light open-air work.
A split in the Labour Party!
I would not like to see city workers on holidays going out competing with agricultural workers during the harvest time. But if an industrial worker is lucky enough to have a farmer friend in the country, the farmer friend would welcome him on a free basis. The Minister should see that if he puts a restriction on the city worker while on holiday engaging in agricultural work that will not apply where the work is without remuneration. If some amendment of this kind is not put in, there is the danger of having an avalanche of industrial workers vieing with each other going to work in the fields and trying to compete with the agricultural workers at a work at which they are not competent.
Do you not think that they would be very soon found out by the farmers?
Well, the very fact of having it set down in the Act that it was illegal for them to accept remuneration would probably serve some purpose. The amendment is not too tightly drawn. We on this side of the House want to see that the worker gets a legitimate holiday. A man may have a hobby to do a bit at haymaking and that would not displace any country worker, but if he is allowed to work at a remuneration it may become a menace and an injustice to the agricultural worker.
It is refreshing to know that this House can discuss a question of this character without reference to party affiliations. I disagree with Deputy Dockrell and Deputy Norton for two reasons. One is because I abhor legislation which cannot be effectively enforced. I do not see how you can stop a carpenter whose pleasure and joy it is to be carpentering from doing a job for a friend and neighbour during his holiday time or during his free time. I object to it on a second ground, and it is on a more fundamental principle, and that is on the principle of regimentation. It is a very odd thing that the Labour Party gets very excited about the regimentation of the working man.
The Deputy was concerned about over-regimentation in his own Party recently.
I am talking about the regimentation of the working man.
Is the leader not a working man?
I do not know what the Deputy is talking about. He is talking about something that he knows about himself.
About the regimentation of a party.
I am talking about the regimentation of the working man.
Let us talk about the amendment.
I do not see why this House should take upon itself to restrict the liberties of a man during his holiday period simply because he happens to be a working man. Would the House think it reasonable that it should proceed to legislate where I am to spend my holidays, how I am to spend them, or what I am to do during my holidays?
We would like to.
Get a special Bill to yourself.
Monkeys like to climb trees, but that is no reason why others should enjoy that business, too.
We will get a better definition than that in the Bill.
It is obvious that the ordinary independent citizen would very much object if this House proceeded to lay down rules and regulations to govern his holidays. The Leader of the Labour Party would be very angry if the House purported to say: "Having led the Labour Party for so many weeks in the House, you should go into retirement and not make any silly speeches at trade union congresses; you make enough in Dáil Eireann." But, seriously, this is a departure in which we are going to undertake the task, not only of regulating industrial conditions, but of following the working man into his free time and attempting by legislation to restrict his liberty. There is no question of his doing anything illegal or objectionable, because we are now dealing with preserving for the labouring man the quality of his holiday. This legislation is not primarily designed to remedy unemployment. It is primarily designed to improve industrial conditions. My submission to the Labour Party is that, in desiring to restrict the liberty of the working man on his holidays, they are going altogether too far and subscribing to a principle of regimentation which, if once adopted, will be carried very much further and produce bitter resentment amongst all independent-minded men who are working for wages. I claim no right, either as a legislator or as a citizen, to interfere with the legitimate activities of my neighbour in his free time. I do, however, claim the right to insist that decent conditions will obtain in industry and that substantial justice will be done between one man and another, no matter what their relation may be within the bounds of the society to which they belong.
Would the Deputy have any objection to some of his employees going to work with another employer during the period of their holidays?
Whatever personal representation I would make to a man who knew the routine of my business going to work for my competitor, and, to that extent, injuring my interest, would be a matter, in my opinion, for negotiation between me and my employee. I think he owes a duty to me as I owe a duty to him. I do not think a decent man working with you would deliberately go and work to your detriment with one of your competitors by carrying into your competitor's house the special knowledge and skill of your trade that he had acquired in your house, so long as he proposed to remain in your employment. But what fairness and good fellowship in industrial relations demands is a very different thing from what we are entitled to impose upon people by statute. One is the implementation of good relations, and the other, in my respectful submission, is regimentation and a very serious limiting of the liberty of the individual. It suits the Labour Party at the moment to advocate regimentation in this particular, but if the principle is carried further they will very rightly and bitterly resent it. I want them to resist the principle right from the word "go" and to stand over the theory that, when we ask for holidays for industrial workers, we ask for free time, so that every independent citizen may use that free time as he thinks best for himself.
I agree that it is proper to deprecate a practice by which an employee who, under this Bill, gets a holiday, uses that to follow his own trade and make money. But what is a holiday unless it means freedom to the individual who gets the holiday. I think the Minister would be wrong in inserting this sub-section. Is it suggested that a law should be passed that after working hours in the evening a man should not be allowed to do any more work? I do not know that any such law obtains.
It has been very strongly urged here.
I submit that is already looked after effectively by the trade unions. I suggest that this would be more appropriate as a trade union condition than as a sub-section in any Bill. The trade unions will look after them if they use their holiday time to work for hire at their trade. If a man gets holidays he should not be put in a strait-jacket during that period; he should have absolute freedom. I am surprised at this coming from the Labour Party. I would think that it would come more suitably from what might be termed tyrannical employers, if there are such people. I do not suggest that Deputy Dockrell is a tyrannical employer. I know him to be one of the best employers in Dublin or in Ireland. Any opinion Deputy Dockrell gives here is absolutely straight and honest, with years of experience behind it, which adds more to its value. I know that the remarks he made on this were genuine and honest and designed to carry out the spirit of the holiday that has been decided upon as an experiment. In the Civil Service I believe there is an unwritten rule that a man must do no other work; that he is fully engaged, and when he gets a holiday he is supposed to use it as a holiday. I remember when I was a civil servant that I appreciated the holiday most because I had not to get up in the morning to be in at a certain time and that I could go away for three or four weeks and have absolute freedom from a boss. If you are going to hem in a man who gets a few weeks holidays with rigid conditions like these you are almost letting him out on ticket-of-leave. All you need do to make him a complete ticket-of-leave man is to provide that he must report at the nearest Gárda Síochána station while he has his holiday. I suggest the withdrawal of the sub-section.
I am rather surprised that an amendment of this kind should have been moved. I have never been a member of a trade union.
What about the Bar Association?
The best trade union in the world.
The Deputy can speak for himself. I am not a member of a trade union, and never have been.
I think the Deputy is forgetting about the Bar, which is the closest trade union in the world.
My association with the Bar is for a shorter period than with other work. I have been getting holidays for some part of my life but there was a time when I did not get any holidays at all. I have been getting them, however, for the last 20 years. I got holidays as social justice began to develop, and when employers saw it was to their benefit to treat their employees well. But if I thought when going on my holidays that I was going to be put into a strait-jacket as to what I was to do when I went into the country, I would remain at my work. Nothing would compel me to take holidays under such circumstances. Further, I say that if, on going on my holidays strait-jacket regulations were placed upon me, I would violate them. I would take utter freedom from my employer's control; that is the whole thing. If you are bound down to fixed time and hours, you have no holiday. What is the point in all this? I have been mixed up in these matters for the past 20 years. What is the advantage of a holiday to a worker? It is, as Deputy Belton says, when he feels the sense of freedom and relief, that for the time being he is not a piece of machinery with fixed hours. That is his sense of freedom. Assuming there are employees working on a farm at which the man on holidays stays, he goes out on the farm, sees a man doing a job, and he says to him, "Sit down and rest yourself, I will do that work for you for a while." He is only relieving a fellow-man; he is only doing a humane job. I have done that hundreds and thousands of times and, please God, I shall do it again, no matter what strait-jacket laws this House may pass. Such regulations would be entirely wrong and would destroy the whole atmosphere of a holiday. They are ill-conceived and fundamentally wrong. We are told that such a man, while on his holidays, would be reducing employment. He will do nothing of the kind. If a man does a job for a paid worker on a farm he is not replacing him; he is giving him assistance in a humanitarian way. That is what happens and nothing else. The Labour Party need not be in the least afraid.
A man going on his holidays goes with the fixed view that he is free for six days, or ten days, or two weeks. He is a slave if he does not do that and if he does not claim mental and physical freedom. If he does a job on a farm he does it for amusement and because he loves it. He leads an active life and he feels, after he is thoroughly rested, that it is good to be doing something. I think it is entirely wrong to attempt to impose this strait-jacket on people who lead active lives. A man in good health in the country would not feel satisfied unless he was doing some active work. If I thought that such activity would disemploy anyone, or would take work from people who were in work, I would certainly oppose it. But that is not what occurs. This House can pass this strait-jacket legislation, this regimentation, but it cannot enforce it. To do so, you would have to pursue people into their homes and have a policeman standing by to see that a man does not take a shovel in his hands or apply a brush to a horse in the stable. Again, I say that if I thought people on holidays would interfere with legitimate labour, I would oppose it.
This amendment has been subjected to more misrepresentation than any dealt with so far.
Legal quibbles.
The amendment seeks to ensure that the granting of holidays to workers engaged in industry is with the intention of bringing about improvement in the conditions of industry. It is considered that the holiday is the most suitable way to rest and recuperate people after 12 months of toil. This amendment is set down here to prevent a man from abusing his holiday by throwing himself into competition with other workers in his own or any other industry. And it is characterised by Deputy Belton, Deputy Dillon and Deputy McMenamin as manacling, tying up, and putting into a strait-jacket because it is sought to secure that a worker shall use his holidays for the purpose for which they were intended. It is intended to prevent a man on holidays from scabbing on the unemployed. A man is not prevented from taking recreation or any-think like that on his holidays. We want to prevent him throwing himself into competition with either employers or employees. That suggestion is lost completely in a mist of misrepresentation about strait-jackets and about being manacled. Deputy Dillon is after restricting the workers to six days' holidays. He would give them six days in what he and his friends are pleased to call strait-jackets; we would give them 12 days' holidays.
In this discussion we are gradually staggering towards a clear understanding of the question that really is at issue.
"Some" stagger on those benches.
Well, we are staggering towards the light, not towards the dark.
The Deputy is the only one who is doing the staggering towards the light, a fact on which he is to be congratulated.
I think we have to consider what really is at issue in this question. Certainly, I would join with the previous speakers on these benches who have spoken about curtailing liberty and freedom. I believe that I have as great a desire for freedom as anybody, but if we examine this Bill, we find that we have come to the conclusion that it is desirable to restrict the hours of workers to a certain minimum. If that is not desirable, I would like to suggest that you might as well tear up this Bill. Is it desirable that there should be a 48-hour week according to this Bill? I think a certain amount of confusion has been introduced by looking at it from various standpoints. I think some Deputies who have spoken are looking at it from the angle that it is going to increase employment. That is not the angle at which I am looking at it. I think this House ought to approach the consideration of this question from the angle as to whether 48 hours is a desirable period which the ordinary worker ought not to exceed in a week. I think that is a very desirable period to fix. If you agree on that you come to the conclusion that the Government is quite entitled to say that a worker ought not to work any longer or be employed any longer than 48 hours. If you accept that, and I think the House has accepted that, you must be logical and see where this logical conclusion brings you.
I should like to submit that it is perfectly logical to say that having worked 48 hours in the week for one employer, a worker should not start out and do another 48 hours, 24 hours or 12 hours for another employer. That is the real question at issue and, to my mind, that is not restricting the liberty of the individual. You might as well talk, as I said earlier in the discussion, about disturbing the liberty of a pickpocket by making it illegal for him to pick somebody's pocket. There is the other question of working during holidays. I think there again some of us are slightly confused in our ideas. I think we would all join in condemning a worker who, during working hours for his regular employer, started to work for another employer by whom he would be paid as well as being paid by his regular employer.
Supposing he were writing a magazine article?
If he were writing a magazine article while he was being paid by Deputy Belton, say, to do other work?
In his off hours.
I am talking of his working hours. I think there can be no question that if he were writing a magazine article, a book or a play, during the hours for which he was paid by his employer, that that should be stopped.
He would probably get a permanent holiday to finish his magazine article.
I quite agree. I cannot see any difference between that worker who is being paid by his employer and who starts to take pay from a certain person to do other work during his working hours, and the person who takes up work from another employer while he is being paid on holidays from employer No. 1. I submit that it is not restricting the liberty of the subject to prevent his doing so. It is nonsense to describe it as such. It is restricting him in committing a dishonest action. As I have used the analogy of the pickpocket, I might say that he was putting his hand into the pocket of employer No. 1. I submit that is the practice he is engaged in, if he works for a second employer while he is paid for holidays which he is supposed to take. I submit that is the real issue. I think we must be logical and admit that if workers take holidays and engage during those holidays in occupations for which they are paid by other individuals, they are committing a dishonest action.
What Deputy Dockrell says is the real issue would be the real issue if the amendment were quite differently framed from the way in which it is framed. If the amendment merely provided that an employee on holiday should not enter into an occupation similar to his normal occupation, or competitive with his normal business, I suppose we should all agree on it. Whether it could be adequately enforced is another question; but it would be worth while trying. I cannot for a moment admit, however, that because an employee receives pay during the period he is on vacation, therefore, the employer has the right to exercise general control over the way in which he will spend that vacation; because that is what Deputy Dockrell's plea seems to me to amount to. The essence of a vacation, as has been pointed out by several speakers, is that you can dispose of it in any way you like yourself, and that you do not regard yourself as your employer's man during the period of vacation. You forget about your employer, and you consider yourself at complete liberty to dispose of your vacation as you wish. I see no reason why, if a man's tastes lie in that way when he is on a holiday, he should not occupy himself in doing one of the many things that can be done of quite a different type from what he normally does. Many of these things are things that do not displace other people from work. I could imagine a man with a taste for art taking the opportunity during a holiday to paint a picture for sale. Again, he may have a taste for sculpture and carry out some sculptural work and expect to get money for it.
He would not be prevented by the amendment.
I do not agree. The amendment says that a worker while on his annual leave "shall not perform work for remuneration in the service of the employer of such worker," which means any gainful employment.
Read the governing phrase.
What phrase?
The governing phrase.
The amendment says that the worker shall not perform work for remuneration in the service of the employer or in any other employment whatever. There is no governing phrase at all.
Of course there is an employer presupposed all the time.
"In the service of the employer of such worker or in any other employment whatever." There is no governing phrase. "Or any other employer whatever" has nothing to govern it.
What is employment for remuneration?
Employment for remuneration?
Does not employment for remuneration presuppose an employer?
Your employer may be the editor of a newspaper and he gives you an assignment. There is a well-known individual who comes over here and lectures—Mr. Gibbons— who used to be engaged in some form of industrial occupation and used to spend his holidays with profit to himself, as well as to his readers, by getting an assignment from newspapers to go on a walk in Spain or some other place and write about it afterwards. I am using that as an illustration.
It is a far-fetched one.
It is not, because it is not impossible that an Irish citizen would be capable of a similar enterprise. A man might like to act, even for payment, in his holidays. He might like to play in an orchestra or compose music. There are a hundred ways, both indoors and outdoors, in which a man might occupy himself. He might take on a job during his holidays, have a lot of fun out of it, and injure nobody by doing so. I understand that Deputy Norton's amendment is not going to be pressed. Is that right?
It is accepted, but we are having a post-mortem on it.
The Minister, I think, is not accepting it as it is.
I said that I would see if I could produce an amendment for the Report Stage which would be enforceable and which would give effect to the general idea of this amendment, as well as amendment No. 53, in the name of Deputy Dockrell.
Then this discussion is not by any means irrelevant or unimportant, because the object of it is to ensure that whatever amendment the Minister brings in will be one which does not debar a person in an industrial occupation from using his vacation for paid work, provided that paid work is not in competition with his normal employment.
If Deputy Norton is going to insist that an industrial worker shall not be allowed to engage in his ordinary avocation during the holiday period but will be at liberty to hire a boat and compete in sea fishing with fishermen, then I think we will have to vote against that.
The examples that Deputy MacDermot gave were rather far-fetched. It is hardly likely that the persons covered by the amendment are going to engage in sculpture, painting pictures or writing articles during their holiday period. I imagine that, if they were to write articles for the magazines they would hardly get them accepted. I take it that the underlying idea is to compel employers to give a minimum of six days annual holidays to those who may be looked upon as their permanent workers. On the other hand, there is the idea to secure for workers a fortnight's rest. The argument is sometimes used that a change of work is as good as a rest. Deputy MacDermot's argument was that, so long as a man was not engaged in his ordinary normal occupation during the holiday period, he should be allowed to go into competition, so to speak, for any other work that was going. If there is work going, other than that on which he is normally engaged, I suggest that such a man is, of all persons, the least fitted for it. As we all know, there are thousands of people in the country unemployed. Instead of getting 51 weeks' work and one week's holidays, their position is that they can only get one week's work in the year. They are idle for the remainder of it. I think steps should be taken to ensure that workers on holidays will abstain from entering into competition for work with those who are unemployed during the greater part of the year. If there is any work going for which remuneration is to be obtained, then that work should go to those who are not in permanent employment. If that is recognised, I think there should be agreement on this from all sides of the House. If a man gets a period during which to relax from the work at which he is normally employed, I suggest that he should take the full benefit of that.
I want to congratulate Deputy Dockrell on having explained the position to some members of his Party who do not seem to be able to understand the matter. I am surprised that a potential Attorney-General, like Deputy McMenamin, has not been able——
When the Deputy speaks in this House his mind seems to be always on office. It is his own bump that is over-developed.
The Deputy, a potential Attorney-General, ought to be able to make clear a section of this kind, and to give the House some light and guidance from the high legal pedestal which he occupies. Instead, it was left to Deputy Dockrell, a non-legal man to explain to Deputy McMenamin what the section really means. With regard to this regimentation idea that is so distasteful to Deputy Dillon and Deputy MacDermot, it is rather strange that that Party is opposed to regimentation. Have they thrown over their so-called labour policy which was published under a blue cover a short time ago and which was reeking with regimentation? There was to be a private, well-regimented army established.
Not under this section.
Quite, but I am discussing the principle of regimentation which is so much opposed by the Deputies opposite in connection with this section.
It was merely a colour scheme.
Well, it has faded pretty quickly, I think. The Deputies opposite object to regimentation, but were we not told that they stood for such regimentation as to insist that every one in every industry must join a trade union whether they liked it or not? Is that regimentation? If I tried to get a proposal of that kind into this Bill, I can well understand how I would be denounced by Deputy Dillon and Deputy McMenamin and, yet, according to their declaration of policy, they were prepared to carry their regimentation to the extent that they would not allow a worker to decide whether he should or should not be in a trade union.
That is not in any official declaration of policy of our Party.
It is in the 1934 declaration of policy.
No, it is not.
The question before the House is paragraph 6 of amendment No. 50.
The Party opposite only believe in one kind of regimentation, and that is regimentation in the political interest. They do not want regimentation which will ensure that the intentions of the legislature are given effect to. Deputy MacDermot's logic this morning was of a particularly peculiar brand. He said he wanted to ensure that a worker would get his holidays in order that he would not be under the control of the employer for whom he worked. In other words, that he should not be regarded as the employer's man for the full 52 weeks, that he should be subject to that sort of employer's control only for 51 weeks. Deputy MacDermot would have him released for one week. I want to release him to enjoy himself and to prevent him from getting into the clutches of any other employer.
Can you not trust him to enjoy himself?
I cannot.
His idea of enjoyment might be working for a week in a brewery.
Deputy MacDermot says: "I want to get the worker free from the employer for one week." The object of that, surely, is to enable him to enjoy his holiday.
I did not exactly say that. I was replying to Deputy Dockrell's suggestion that the employer continued to have a sort of right over the man's time during the vacation.
While desirous to have the worker released from the control of one employer for one week out of 52 weeks, the Deputy proposes to make it possible for that worker to be employed by another employer, or even by the same employer, during the week he is supposed to be on holidays. Deputy MacDermot took the cases of potential poets, artists, and folk of that type who might like to practise their avocations——
What about professional athletes and boxers?
The Deputy takes these potential boxers, potential artists, potential journalists, potential painters and potential poets as his stock-in-trade. Those are the types of industrial workers the Deputy has in mind.
What about politicians?
Or political organisers?
They are included with the artists.
Or writers of fiction?
Deputy MacDermot must realise that these are not typical cases. If we could make this section effective in respect of the different grades of industrial workers——
Will the Deputy allow me to interrupt him for a moment? I am not pretending that the man who is going to spend his holiday in a gainful occupation is typical. He is not typical. I suppose 99 per cent. of workers would not do anything of the kind, but I do not want the exception to be obliged to conform to the type.
You cannot legislate for the individual. The Deputy knows that.
This debate, so far as the Party opposite is concerned, has taken rather a peculiar turn. Deputy Dockrell, who has considerable experience in industrial matters, supports our amendment. Deputy Morrissey, who has experience in another form of industrial activity, supports our amendment. But all the theorists on the benches opposite who have no such experience are out to oppose this amendment.
Why does the Deputy say that they have no experience?
I am willing to be interrupted to be told that Deputy McMenamin is a captain of industry. I am willing to withdraw my remarks if I can be assured of that—unless talk in this House can be regarded as an industry.
Be careful.
This amendment is designed to make sure that if the State, by legislation, grants a worker a week's holidays, he shall enjoy that week's holidays for the purpose for which it was given to him—to recuperate from industrial toil.
On lines laid down by the trade unions and on no other lines.
Trade unions are not mentioned here.
Or by the employer.
The purpose of the amendment is to make sure that the employer cannot employ him and that he cannot work during that week.
Why not leave that to the trade unions?
In addition to having the trade unions look after that matter, it is well to have a provision in this Bill making it an offence for such persons to engage in employment during that week.
There would be no need for trade unions if that principle were extended.
I think the Deputy is, as usual, building castles in the air.
Take care that your castle does not fall.
It never fell as often as your castle fell. The Deputy's political castles do not last longer than six months.
They are not professional castles. He can live without them.
He has considerable facility for changing his castles.
I suggest that the Deputy should get away from the castles and get back to the section.
My roots are firmer than the Deputy's.
It depends on where they are set.
They are not for hire.
They are unsaleable——
Unpurchaseable.
Not fit for consumption. May I ask your protection, a Leas-Chinn Comhairle, against Deputy Belton's confessions of his industrial past?
I think that the Deputy was looking for the interruptions.
As this Bill will come up again in Committee, I think the theoretical side of the question might be adjourned.
Will the Minister accept the principle that so far as the workers are concerned, they should be protected, so far as they can be protected by a provision in this Bill, as regards work during the period of holidays?
I think we shall have to make some provision to ensure that workers on a week's holidays, during which they are paid, will not be free to take employment in the manner described by Deputy Dockrell. I have no objection to the person concerned writing poems or plays.
I think that the community should be protected even against that kind of recreation.
That governs No. 53.
Are we to take it that a man getting holidays gets them on condition?
That he takes them.
It has been said here that if that man does anything during that period he is picking his employer's pocket. The condition of that man's employment is that he works, if he is in continuous employment, for 51 weeks and gets 52 weeks' wages. He has a contract, and whatever he does in that fifty-second week is not taking anything out of the employer's pocket or out of the pocket of anybody else.
It might be. A motor-mechanic might spend his holidays going round and working on motor-cars which would otherwise be brought to a garage. A carpenter might go around and take jobbing carpentry work. We might have a number of other industrial workers doing their ordinary work in another capacity during their week's holidays.
Even if they went round like that, they would not do one day's work in a week.
This Bill will be recommitted and, as the Minister is to move another amendment, it would be better to postpone consideration of this matter.
I do not think paragraph (7) is necessary. If the Deputy will look at Section 9 he will see that "employment year means any period of 12 calendar months during which a worker is in the employment of an employer reckoned from the date or any anniversary of the date on which such worker enters the employment."
So long as the date of employment is not to be post-dated.
No. In any employment year. That is the year following the date of the anniversary on which the employee entered the service.
Supposing this Bill passes through this House and passes through the Seanad next month, and comes into operation in November, and that holidays are then granted, am I to take it that the employment year will be the period 12 months prior to that date?
Every worker must get a week's holidays in every employment year. The wording of the section is: "Every employer shall allow to each worker in his employment in any industrial undertaking a period of not less than six consecutive days' leave in every employment year." The "employment year" is defined in Section 9 as: "any period of 12 calendar months during which a worker is in the employment of an employer reckoned from the date or any anniversary of the date on which such worker enters the employment of such employer." The "employment year" for each worker might be different, but after 12 months he becomes entitled to a week's annual leave.
Do I take it from the Minister's interpretation of the section that service rendered by an employee, prior to the passage of this Bill, will automatically be counted for the purpose of ascertaining what that "employment year" is?
I am not saying that.
I understood the Minister to say that this paragraph is unnecessary.
The "employment year" means 12 months following the date on which the worker enters the employment of the employer, or the anniversary of such date. In each 12-months period he must get his annual leave. The "employment year" for each worker may be different, having regard to the date of entry into the employment.
Take this case. Suppose a worker at present in employment was engaged on January 1st and this Bill comes into operation in September, the "employment year" of that worker finishes on December 31st. Provision is made by the Bill for six days' holidays during the "employment year." Can the six days' holidays be taken not later than the last week in December?
I do not see anything in the Bill to prevent that.
I want to make sure in a positive way, and I am asking the Minister to accept the amendment in order to make the position clear. The Minister is doubtful if what I want done is possible under the Bill. If the Minister is willing to look into the matter he can deal with it again.
As to paragraph (8), I agree that that may be necessary. I will look into it. There may be some necessity to ensure what the Deputy has in the paragraph. As regards paragraph (9), it will be necessary to provide that in calculating wages to be paid during the holiday week regard must be had to the normal earnings of the worker on an average number of weeks beforehand. In other words, we would have to leave out of account any abnormal factors that might have operated to increase or to reduce what the worker received. It might be that owing to illness, or a breakdown in the plant, or some other cause, the worker in the period immediately preceding the holidays got less than he would have ordinarily earned, or he might have had abnormal overtime, or for some such cause his earnings might be unduly increased. I propose that the amount earned will be the amount during the normal weeks and that that will be taken into account.
What I want to ensure is that for a worker employed for nine or ten months, who is then reduced to part time, half-time or three-quarter time, which represents only a fraction less than the full time, the rate should be the normal rate provided during full time.
It would work the other way if there was abnormal overtime. That can also be ignored.
If wages were taken as the test, and not extra wages, it would be satisfactory. Under the Bill as it stands it would be advantageous to an employer to reduce the workers to half-time the week before they went on holidays.
Or for the workers to speed up production on piece rates.
I am not asking for that. I am asking for normal average earnings.
I think that can be dealt with in Section 63.
And it will be done.
Yes.
I move amendment No. 51:—
At the end of sub-section (5) to add the words:—"and shall be liable to pay to such worker in respect of the period of the annual leave a sum equal to double the amount of the salary, wages or other reward earned by such worker in respect of the period aforesaid."
I think there is something to be said for that amendment and I should like to look into it.
As the employee has no remedy he should be paid something for the inconvenience caused.
I have every sympathy with the amendment and I should like to have an opportunity of considering it.
On behalf of Deputy Beckett, I move amendment No. 54.
This amendment and amendment No. 63 go together. I take it the purpose is to enable any employer to shut down an undertaking for a week.
Or group of employers.
If that should happen, instead of each worker getting a week's pay he would only get that proportion of a week's pay which his previous employment with the same employer would entitle him to get. That is something undesirable. I do not see that it is of much advantage to a worker to get a week's holidays unless he gets a week's pay as well. It might possibly be a disadvantage to give a worker a week's holiday without pay, or to pay him only for one or two days. Consequently, I propose to resist this. There is nothing to prevent an employer shutting down for a week and giving all the employees holidays at the same time, provided he pays them a week's wages and is prepared to take the risk that he may be giving some workers more than they are entitled to, if they have not completed one year's employment in his service. I do not think it would be advisable to enable an employer to give a worker a week's holidays shortly after he entered his employment and to pay him only for one or two days according to the period of his employment.
Why should not the amendment be added to to prevent that?
I think that is the main purpose of amendment No. 63. That is the idea behind the amendment. As the Bill stands, if an employer shuts down he has to give a week's pay. The amendment would enable an employer to shut down for a week and only to give to each worker that proportion of a week's pay to which previous service would entitle him. That is undesirable. I know that Deputy Beckett, who is associated with amendment No. 54, has some idea that by agreement between the trade associations and the trade unions a holiday fund would be created, out of which each worker could get a week's holidays with pay rather than, as might happen in regard to the circumstances of a trade such as the building trade, each worker getting one day's pay at the end of two months. I gather that in that trade it is not very usual for workers to get a year's continuous employment. Therefore, what would probably happen, as the Bill stands, in respect of workers engaged in that industry, is that they would do a job for, say, two months and get one day's pay, or a job for four months and get two days' pay, or a job for six months and get three days' pay, and that they would only get the pay in lieu of holidays which the Bill provides for. I think that the Deputy is trying to work out some system by which, instead of getting that day's pay or two days' pay, as the case may be, it should be retained until some period when the work could shut down and each worker get a week's pay. It must be remembered, however, that the amendment which the Deputy has moved does not relate to the building trade only, and that, whereas it might serve all right for the building trade, it would be objectionable to other kinds of employment, such as factory employment, where different conditions obtain. In the circumstances, I think it is better to leave the Bill as it stands and I would suggest that the Deputy would reconsider the matter with a view, perhaps, to introducing an amendment confined to his own trade or else to provide for regulations to be made, on representations by parties engaged in a particular industry, to implement whatever agreement might be come to.
I was not concerned with the framing of this particular amendment and it is quite possible that the Minister has information about an aspect of this that I certainly was not aware of. I thought that the idea was to enable the industry to close down for a week—that a week should be prescribed for a particular industry. That brings us, of course, to what the Minister has said. I quite realise his difficulty and that he does not want men to be docked because at that particular shut down they are short of qualifying for a week's holidays. I think that is the genesis of the Minister's objection?
Yes.
Well, that brings us to another aspect of this, and that is the point that Deputy Norton was referring to, as to when the week commences or when the man starts to qualify. Certainly, if you are going to take the date on which the worker entered the employment, there will be considerable difficulty and conflict about that. I think that a lot of people have been in and out of various employments half a dozen times, and there will be a certain amount of difficulty in that. The Minister has referred to the building industry and suggested that they are all composed of casual workers, but I should like to make a slight difference there. I would say that they were composed of a corps of workers who had regular employment and that outside of them there was a fringe of people who had, more or less, casual employment with them. However, that is only a detail, and I am much obliged for the way in which the Minister stated his objection to this amendment. I take it that the amendment can be withdrawn and that it can be reconsidered from that point of view.
Personally, I should like to see some scheme devised by which the building industry could adjust itself to these requirements so that it would, in fact, give the workers a week's holiday with pay instead of an extra day's pay from time to time. If there are any proposals of that nature suggested, I shall be prepared to give them very sympathetic consideration.
When reconsidering this, I would suggest to Deputy Dockrell that he should also consider the question of including representatives of the workers in the joint representations suggested.
I do not follow what the Deputy means.
The amendment sets out that if joint representation is made to the Minister by organisations representing the majority of the employers either in all industries in Saorstát Eireann or in recognised groups of such industries certain arrangements will be made with regard to the period of the annual leave. Obviously, the proposal does not include representatives of the workers.
I think that the Deputy meant by using the words "joint representations," to include representatives of the workers.
Oh, yes.
Amendment 55 seems to have some connection with amendment No. 56.
No, Sir, I do not think so.
I move amendment No. 55:
To add at the end of sub-section (1) the words:—"in consultation with the trade union of which such worker is a member so as to provide that not less than fifty per cent. of the workers employed to perform industrial work for him shall become entitled to annual leave in the period between the first day of May and the thirtieth day of September."
In sub-section (1) of Section 20, it is provided that the time in any employment year at which an employer shall allow annual leave to a worker who is entitled to annual leave under this Act shall be selected by such employer. I want to add at the end of that section the words: "in consultation with the trade union of which such worker is a member so as to provide that not less than 50 per cent. of the workers employed to perform industrial work for him shall become entitled to annual leave in the period between the first day of May and the thirtieth day of September." There is nothing in this amendment to prevent the employer and representatives of his workers agreeing that the whole undertaking should close down for a week if it were mutually believed that that were a desirable course to adopt; but if it is not intended to close down for the week, this amendment seeks to ensure that the workers will not be required to go on holidays at a time exclusively selected by the employer. It also seeks to ensure that there will be consultation with the representatives of the trades unions concerned so as to ensure that not less than 50 per cent. of the workers employed will be entitled to receive their holidays between the first day of May and the thirtieth day of September. I think that a good deal of the value of this Bill would be defeated if workers were to be sent on holidays in the month of January or the month of December, and it is obviously desirable that we should try to aim at ensuring that as many workers as possible will get their holidays in the period of the year which is generally recognised by the community in general to be the best period for recuperative holidays. I hope the Minister will accept the amendment.
Assuming that the amendment is sound in other respects, why should consultation with the trade unions be necessary?
It would be necessary so as to overcome any difficulties and get the thing done in mutual accord.
So there is no necessity for the intervention of the trade union?
If the Deputy and his Party had their way, the employer would be in the trade union.
That was 1933. Deputy Norton is going far back in referring to the Deputy's Party.
I think that even the ghosts of the Party are hovering around still.
I hope that the Minister will consider the effect of this amendment on certain industries before he accepts it, because, while I can agree with Deputy Norton that this is probably the best period of the year for recuperative holidays, I am sorry to say that the Almighty has also decided that it should be the most desirable portion of the year for building operations. Let us consider what the average builder does. He makes a tremendous spurt during the period of fine weather. He gets the walls up and he gets the roof on, and then he has got a whole lot of employment for people, independent of the weather. You are going to pinch him in the period at which the weather and the light are best, and at which he can carry on his work to the greatest advantage. I would urge on the Minister that this would be a very great handicap, because it asks that 50 per cent. of the leave should be given at the busiest time of the year.
My argument against the second part of the Deputy's amendment is on somewhat similar lines to that of Deputy Dockrell. There are a number of trades which are seasonal trades, and because they are seasonal trades you cannot say arbitrarily for all industries that holidays must be given during certain months. I think we must leave the selection of the period during which holidays will be given, either to all the workers in the concern or to individual workers in the concern, very largely to the discretion of the employer, but there is nothing in the Bill which precludes consultation between the employer and the trade union, if such is considered necessary or desirable.
By whom?
By either party.
Will the Minister indicate the section which requires an employer to consult?
There is nothing which precludes such consultation.
And if the employer says: "I will not have any consultation"?
The employers have often said that before and have come to my Department afterwards to invite both parties to come together to settle their differences.
Does the Minister want to have to settle strikes? Does the Minister want to be put in that position? He objected to deputations last night.
I have no hope that from this Bill strikes will disappear. There will be another Bill necessary before that ideal is realised.
Is the Government going to introduce it?
I had better not commit myself on that subject.
I would advise the Minister to commit himself to a declaration that he will not.
Oh, no. In any event, we could not possibly have it prescribed in this Bill for all particular classes of workers or for individual workers that holidays must be given at certain periods of the year. We do not know the circumstances of all industries and, in respect of some industries, any such restriction would be much more onerous than for others.
I do not think there is any real difficulty from the standpoint mentioned by Deputy Dockrell. It is true that the building industry is a seasonal industry, and it is also true that the worker knows that it is in the best weather he has the best chance of securing employment and that the longer the good weather lasts the better chance of extending the duration of his employment. I think, therefore, that, in respect of that particular industry, Deputy Dockrell need not fear that there will be any great demand that the workers in large numbers or in irreplaceable numbers should go on annual leave. I think the temptation there would be to work while the work is available and to take holidays when they knew that the employment had fallen off. I think that must be Deputy Dockrell's own experience in that respect.
The Minister says that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent consultation between the employer and the union. I know there is nothing to prevent the union and the employer doing a variety of things under this Bill, but there is nothing in the Bill which prevents an employer from saying to his workers on 1st January: "I think this is the best time of the year for you to have your holidays" or saying that in November or December, even though he might regard July and August as best for himself. I want to ensure that the employer cannot arbitrarily decide the period at which the worker must go on holidays.
I think it must be so. The employer must have the right to decide.
Without any regard to the period of the year or to the workers' interest? Does the Minister say "Yes" to that?
Having regard to the requirements of his industry, yes.
Without any consultation?
That is what I am putting in the Bill.
What is the objection to requiring a consultation at least?
I do not think it is necessary. I am not preventing him from having a consultation with anyone he likes.
Would the Minister not think it desirable, even if it only had the effect of ensuring that the Minister would not subsequently be troubled with settling a strike in that industry, to ensure that there would be consultation between the representatives of the workers and the employers, so as to overcome any difficulties as to when the workers would have holidays?
That is not what the Deputy asks. The employer will no doubt consult the workers.
He need not, if he does not like to do so; under this Bill. He can decide that he wants to go away in December, and he can send all the workers away and close down the industry. He may make up his mind a few days before he decides to go away that he is going away and that he wants to close down the business, and, whether the workers like it or not, or whether there is a snowstorm in the country, they are sent out to get their six days' recuperative holiday. I think that is an absurd provision in the Bill.
Is Deputy Norton not going too far with this amendment? I am altogether in sympathy with the effort to put industrial workers in a position similar to the position already enjoyed by, say, clerical workers in a bank or such people, with regard to holidays. In the case of clerical workers in a bank and other businesses, it is at present left to the employer to decide when holidays shall be taken. Of course, that is done in consultation with the employees affected. It must be, and I have no doubt that it would be, in industrial concerns, too, in consultation with the employees affected. That, however, is not a matter for which you legislate and in respect of which it is appropriate to bring in the trade unions. I cannot avoid the suspicion that Deputy Norton is trying to use this Bill, not only in this amendment but in many others, as a God-given opportunity for entrenching the trade unions in a position of dictatorship which they have not hitherto held.
Does the Deputy's Party not stand for dictatorship and the entrenching of trade unions?
No.
Deputy MacDermot makes that suggestion because of his complete ignorance of the methods of trade unionism. Otherwise, I do not think he would make the remark. He seems to be unaware that trade unions have in these industries what are called shop stewards, actually working in the firm and looking after the interests of their fellow employees. The amendment suggests that such persons shall be consulted and endless friction between the employees and the employer in the matter of holidays avoided. That friction could be avoided if the spokesmen or spokeswomen of the employees in the industry were consulted as to when particular branches or particular persons would be released on holidays. There is no question of seeking any entrenching of the trade union position. We are in this instance trying to utilise this to see that the full advantage for the workers is derived from it. The Deputy wants it in the hands of the employers, but we want to ensure that it will not be possible to send workers on their holidays at a time when it would be utterly hopeless, like January, December or November. We want to insist on consultation taking place. It would lead to more harmonious working and make it possible to see how releases could be made without dislocating the industry. I think there is nothing at all unreasonable in the suggestion, and I want to point out again to Deputy MacDermot that the trade unions are represented all the time by the shop stewards.
I am quite certain that in every case there will be that consultation, but Deputy Norton's amendment wants to go further than that.
Tá
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Davin, William.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Everett, James.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Norton, William.
- Reidy, James.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Carty, Frank.
- Corbett, E.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamonn.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ryan, James.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory James.