I addressed a question to the Minister for Finance to-day as to whether he had received a communication dated 27th January last, from the Post Office Workers' Union and the Civil Service Clerical Association, the two largest organisations in the Civil Service, requesting an interview with him on the subject of setting up an arbitration board, which would be mutually acceptable to these organisations and the Government; and whether in view of the promise made by the President of the Executive Council over his own signature, that he was prepared to establish an arbitration board, the Minister would receive the deputation as requested, so that a satisfactory scheme of arbitration might be devised. To that question the Minister made a lengthy reply, the substance of which was that he did not propose to receive the deputation, until such time as he had obtained the views of other organisations in the Civil Service; as if the Minister was by now unaware of the views which have been expressed by these organisations on the Minister's draft scheme of arbitration. In order to get this question of arbitration in its proper perspective it is necessary to go back to 1932, to hear from the present President of the Executive Council his views on the subject Speaking in Rathmines Town Hall—I think on behalf of the present Minister for Finance, who was a candidate for the County Dublin Constituency, and having, no doubt, an eye on the fact that there was a considerable number of civil servants in that Constituency who would have ballot papers handed to them on polling day—the President used these words:—
"I believe it is only right that there should be an arbitration board for the Civil Service to deal with matters between the Service and the Executive. We would be prepared to agree that an arbitration board be set up, and would assent to an inquiry into the basis on which the cost of living is calculated."
There the President expressed the view, in a very definite manner, that he believed it was only right that an arbitration board for the Civil Service should be established to deal with matters in dispute between the Executive and Civil Service organisations. That was on the 28th January, 1932. The present President apparently thought that that was not sufficiently emphatic, because in February, 1932, he published a half page advertisement in the Press which contained a declaration of programme and an appeal to the electorate. Item number seven in the programme read:
"We are prepared to institute an inquiry into the basis on which the cost-of-living figure is calculated, and to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of Civil Servants."
In a very definite and in a very specific manner the present President of the Executive Council not merely promised an arbitration board twice, but made it clear that he believed it was only right, even if there was never an election presumably, that an arbitration board should be established to deal with these grievances. The Civil Service expected there would be no delay on the part of the Government, in view of these specific promises by the President, in having the arbitration board constituted to deal with matters in dispute. But the Government took a roundabout way of establishing the arbitration board. It was generally believed that the President's declaration was a promise to establish an arbitration board, as it is popularly and industrially known—in other words, to establish a lay court, where the staff on the one hand, and the Minister on the other hand, could bring their claims and secure a definite judgment in the way that arbitration machinery generally provides for the declaration of judgment in matters of that kind. There was no question of there being any peculiar hybrid sort of arbitration. There was no qualification in the scheme. It was a frank and candid declaration by the President, that there was to be an arbitration board, and obviously that meant a board of the type with which people are familiar. After a while, however, it became clear that the Executive Council, or the Minister for Finance, thought it was necessary to have a tribunal to advise them as to the kind of arbitration board that should be constituted. There was no tribunal set up to advise the Party prior to 1932. The President definitely promised arbitration in 1932, and the making of the promise having produced the necessary electoral result, then there was to be an inquiry as to how this arbitration could be applied to the settlement of matters in dispute, clearly indicating in the view of the service organisations, that the Executive Council had decided that it was better to hedge on this issue than implement in a bold and honourable manner the promise specifically made by the President and which was relied upon by civil servants. However, after two or three years' cogitation by the Executive Council, the Department of Finance and the Brennan Commission of Inquiry which was set up to assist the Minister in the matter, the service organisations were furnished on the 8th June last with a document from the Department for Finance which was described as: "Heads of the Draft Scheme of Arbitration for the Civil Service," together with notes on certain of the heads, and a letter from the Department of Finance containing this paragraph:
"The Minister will be glad to receive in due course the written observations, of your association on the draft scheme. Any information required by the association in addition to that contained in the document enclosed will, as far as practicable, be sent to you on receipt of a written request in this Department."
The scheme submitted as a draft scheme of arbitration was the most remarkable draft scheme of arbitration anyone ever read. It is described as a draft scheme of arbitration; it might more correctly be described as a draft scheme of arbitration, because there is none of the features of arbitration as popularly and industrially known contained in the scheme which the Minister furnished to the staff organisations. The staff organisations, some individually and some in consultation with others, considered the Minister's scheme, and although there is a multiplicity of organisations in the Civil Service catering for particular grades, and some which cater for a comprehensive variety of grades, all except one of them rejected—some in most unmeasured language—this draft scheme of arbitration submitted by the Minister. It was left to one tiny organisation with a membership of 100 to 150 to be induced into the spider's web woven by the Minister. The rest of the organisations would not dream of attempting to implement the Minter's conception of arbitration as indicated in this document. The Post Office Workers' Union and the Civil Service Clerical Associations wrote to the Minister indicating that the scheme was unsatisfactory and unacceptable to them, and that they desired an opportunity of discussing the matter with him in order that the views of both sides might be harmonised, and a satisfactory scheme of arbitration evolved. It was necessary that the organisations concerned should write to the Minister in these terms, because the scheme of arbitration submitted by him was utterly unacceptable. In the scheme which the Minister submitted he proposed to circumscribe the choice of representatives by the staff. He was to be represented at the arbitration tribunal by any person he cared to select, and he was also to have a say as to the person the staff selected. It is rather an unusual role for a defendant to be able to select his own counsel and, at the same time, to claim a veto over the counsel which the plaintiff would employ. In substance, the Minister sought to do that in this remarkable scheme of arbitration which he produced.
