When the House adjourned last evening, I was endeavouring to indicate the hardships which would be inflicted, by the imposition of this Bill, on trades unions of a minor character. I was endeavouring to show the long and meritorious service given by many of these small unions, and I was pointing out the ruthless method now being employed to drive them out of existence without regard to whether their service had been meritorious or not. Nothing but a hard financial test is to be imposed—whether they can plank down £2,000 as a minimum. That is one of the things contemplated by this Bill, and it will create disorder of a graver character than it is hoped to remedy. So far as the Minister's case, in building up an argument for this Bill, went, it was more or less hypothetical. Nobody could claim that the trades union movement has been without blemish. No organisation in the world is without some flaw or blemish, execept, perhaps, the front Government bench. We do not claim infallibility for the trades union movement, but we would be prepared to suggest that careful analysis of the operations of trades unions in recent years would show that they have displayed a keen regard for the circumstances in which the country found itself. The minimum of industrial dislocation has taken place. I think that our record in that respect compares favourably with that of any other country in the world. Now, the Minister proposes to drive out of existence small unions which have contributed very largely to the maintenance of industrial peace.
He is not satisfied with that. So far as I see, he is going to rob the country of many other useful bodies who are giving their services for the promotion of industrial harmony. Take the position of trades councils under this Bill. The trades councils in the various cities are not an appendage of any of the unions or labour organisations. They consist of representatives of the different unions who come together for consultation and counsel. I can speak more particularly of my own trades council—the trades council of Limerick. I have been a member of that trades council for many years and I know its history before I was a member. It has a very honourable record in settling industrial disputes. Hardly a week passes in which it is not engaged in negotiation with employers and employees. Sometimes the disputes involved are of a minor type; sometimes they are big disputes. The trades council has been complimented many times by people who count for preserving our city from industrial strife. Under the terms of the Bill it will not be possible for them to do that any more. Section 6 of the Bill provides that it will be an offence for any body of persons to carry on negotiations for the fixing of wages or other conditions of employment unless such body is the holder of a negotiation licence. I do not know if it will be possible for a trades council to procure such a licence. If the Bill goes through in its present form, you will be robbing yourselves of some of the best negotiators and best instruments for the implementation of peace in industry this country possesses. The trades council of which I speak has a long and honourable record. Apart from negotiating in industrial disputes, when a lead was called for in 1920 in protest against the permit system, Limerick Trades Council played an honourable part in declaring a show-down throughout the whole city, giving an indication of what it could do in the way of dislocation, as it had shown what it could do in the service of industrial peace. They demonstrated the power of the citizens when the whole city was shut down for a fortnight as a protest against requiring people to procure permits to go to their daily work. Since then, their work has been in the reverse direction. Almost daily, they are engaged in this meritorious work of peace-making and they will now be put out of action by the operation of Section 6. What happens in Limerick will happen in Dublin, Cork and the other centres where trades councils are functioning. They are bodies to which representatives of trades councils come for consultation and advice. Their services are always welcomed by employers in endeavours to settle disputes before they mature. It is a very serious step on the part of the Minister to bring to an end machinery which is doing such useful work.
Under the same section I should like to know what will become of the Railway Wages Board. Under Section 6, certain named organisations are exempted from the necessity for obtaining a negotiation licence. The fact that some bodies are named would indicate, by implication, that any body not so named must have a negotiation licence. The Railway Wages Board came into operation in 1924, more or less to give effect to Section 55 of the Railway Act of that year. It is a voluntary negotiating body, consisting of an equal number of representatives of the railway companies and of the railway operatives, with the addition of independent persons. The independent members comprise Judge Wylie, the Secretary of the Labour Party, the Secretary of the Belfast Trades Council, the Chairman of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, and the Chairman of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce. They have been functioning on behalf of that very big industry, the railway industry, with magnificent success, operating a delicate machine. Apparently, under this section they are no longer entitled to continue. I hope I am wrong in that, but I cannot read anything into the section that will allow the Railway Wages Board to continue to operate, and I think they will be an illegal body if this Bill goes through as it is presented to the House by the Minister. If the Minister contemplates bringing the Railway Wages Board under the executioners' axe and driving them into the limbo of lost things, with the small unions, I, as a railwayman, should like to ask the Minister does he think he is putting sufficient machinery into this Bill to guarantee continuity of the type of industrial peace we have been having. He visualises a happy era when this Bill comes to be a cure-all for all the evils. I want to suggest to him that, before he strikes away all the remedies we have at present and the machinery we have, he ought to be very careful that it is not going to be a reverse process to what he hopes, and consider that we may be entering a much worse position than we are leaving. The Minister did not put down definite reasons against the existing movement. I wish to say—and I think Deputy Morrissey sounded the same note last night—that it may well be that we are walking into a seat of trouble in this Bill. That is a responsibility that must be shared by the country as a whole. If the Minister and the Government are making a mistake in doing that sort of thing it is the country will suffer. I think we on these benches and every other Deputy in the House are perfectly entitled to issue a note of warning to the Minister that before taking this plunge he ought carefully to weigh in advance what are the alternatives he is putting in place of the machinery he is tearing up.
I fail to agree with previous speakers that there was room for some alteration in the trade union movement. With the growing up of the machine age, as I said last night, certain alterations took place in the conduct of the trade union movement, and there was certain rivalry between unions. There may have been individual cases of friction, but, taking all in all, if we hope to continue as a democracy—and I hope that is the desire of the Government as well as other parties in the House— we ought to have democratic institutions. I think in comparison with any other democratic State in the world we can say we have not been any worse, but that we have been much better than most.
Time and again we have had pointed out to us the number of days lost because of industrial disputes. Figures always seem colossal when tabled in that fashion. But I always notice that the statistics of days lost through illness and through unemployment that was deliberately manufactured because of inattention by the Government themselves have not been tabled side by side with the days lost in dislocation in industry. It would be very interesting to set down the number of days lost by the employable people of this country through the negligence of this Government and their predecessors in not providing suitable employment for the people willing and able to work in the country. No attempt has been made to find work for these people because, we are told, of the absence of currency to connect the men to the work that is there to be done. It is all very well to pile on the agony and to exaggerate, as has been exaggerated, the friction existing in the trade union movement. The Minister spoke last night of certain unions' representatives refusing to sit in conference with others. Is the Minister not proposing to do something like that himself? Certain unions thought there were sufficient unions dealing with a particular type or class, and if existing unions refused to co-operate with break-away unions, as they are called, is there any great crime in that? The Minister seeks now to limit unions to a small number in the hope of getting more orders and measures.
I am greatly afraid that sufficient consideration and thought has not been given by the framers of this measure. Considering the time it is being introduced, I wonder what case can be made for risking the dislocation which I suggest is likely to follow and for not giving us in advance any assurance—I wonder if the Minister can give us any assurance—that he is going to give us back machinery which would function equally smoothly in carrying on the affairs of industry of this State. I suggest this is not the time; that there is not sufficient urgency to warrant the introduction of this measure. There are many things of more vital importance that ought to be interesting the Government and engaging their mind at this juncture but they seem to have an obsession for tinkering and tampering with existing institutions, particularly the institutions of the workers that have been built up, as I pointed out, by careful and arduous toil by the present workers and their forefathers. It comes very ill from the Fianna Fáil Government, professing democratic and Christian principles, to uproot the traditions that have been carried on under alien Government and in spite of grave opposition. There is nothing in the trade union movement of which the trade union leaders or members have any reason to be ashamed. They have played their part in the national struggle and they have played their part in trying to maintain decent standards for the workers of this country, sometimes under very adverse conditions. At a time when they should be expecting the co-operation and support of a Government whom they have largely contributed to put into office they get back this sword of Damocles over their head, to cut right across some of their best traditions— the right of free association, the right of selection—which were theirs in the past and which they claim to-day.
Until such time as a case can be put down and substantiated in black and white that the trade union movement has failed to do its part faithfully, I think the Government have no right to interfere. As I said last night, they are opening a door to a type of union which is detestable in the minds of Irish workers, known as a house or company union. Under Section 6 any individual or couple of individuals becomes an accepted body immediately and automatically. They do not want any licence. They can go and negotiate with their employer. That is all right when you are dealing with big firms and big industries, and one can understand certain exception being made, but there is a wide open door through which the whole purpose of the Bill can fall—that any individual or couple of individuals can come along. There is no necessity for a licence on the part of the chief or the employers. But a union must pay their £2,000 or £4,000, as the case may be. It is definitely putting a premium upon the smashing up of trade unionism. Whether that is the intention or not, I do not know but the net result is the same—that the Government are putting a premium upon non-unionism. I suggest that in the long run that is not going to be good for industry in this country. We have not been told that the other Bill following this is going to mark the culmination of their desire to have us brought into a corporative state or some other institution of a continental character. I think we ought to be told now what is the nature of the following measure because, if we are going to continue on democratic lines, I suggest this measure is going the wrong way about it. If there is going to be a reorientation of Government policy I think we ought to be told what is at the back of the Government's mind, what is the nature of the following Bill to which this is only the preamble.
I am supporting the amendment by Deputy Morrissey, not because I am particularly in love with that but because I am prepared to use that or any other instrument to divert the Minister from what I believe is a foolish, unwise, and unwarranted policy in pressing this measure at this juncture.