asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the number of agreements (a) registered and (b) tendered for registration under Section 50 of the Conditions of Employment Act, 1936; whether he is aware that objection has been taken in his Department to the registration of agreements which the contracting parties believed capable of being registered under the Act, and, if so, whether it is his intention to take whatever steps may be necessary to overcome these objections and facilitate the trade union and employers' organisations to secure registration for wages agreements into which they have entered.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Conditions of Employment Act.
No agreements have yet been registered in the Wages Agreements Register established under Section 50 of the Conditions of Employment Act. Forty-three documents, either completed or in draft form, were tendered to the Department for registration. Thirty-six of these documents could not be accepted for one or more of the following statutory reasons, viz.:
(1) The document was not signed by a body or bodies representative of employers and workers respectively.
(2) The area to which the agreement related was not specified.
(3) Agreements made after the 29th May, 1936, did not contain provisions regulating the duration or providing for the termination of the agreement and did not make provision to secure that the agreement would be operative for at least one year.
In addition practically all of these agreements as well as the remaining seven tendered for registration contained provisions regulating matters other than rates of salary, wages, or other reward payable to workers, and I was legally advised that I was debarred from accepting such agreements for registration. As none of the agreements presented complied with the terms of Section 50 of the Act, compliance with which in my opinion should not cause much difficulty, there was no other course open but to refuse registration.
With regard to the last part of the question, I should say that I am most anxious that wages agreements should be registered, and I am aware that advice and assistance with this object are being given constantly by my Department to interested parties. I am not convinced that any amendment of the section is required, but I am prepared to consider any representations which may be made to me on this matter by interested parties.