On a point of order, I have been handed a stencilled sheet containing two amendments submitted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to Section 22. We are resuming on Section 21 and I have not had an opportunity of reading these amendments. I should like to know if it is permissible for the Minister to move these amendments at this stage. I was handed the sheet only a few moments ago and the section may be discussed in half an hour.
Public Business. - Trade Union Bill, 1941—Committee (Resumed).
If any objection be taken to the consideration of these amendments now, they must be postponed to the Report Stage.
Would not that depend on the progress which the Bill makes? We have not been making much progress with this Bill during the past five or six days.
The Chair cannot relate the Minister's point to the point raised by Deputy Norton— whether an amendment not circulated till now, and of which the House has had no notice, could be taken within half an hour. The amendment may not be so taken without the unanimous consent of the House. If that consent be not forthcoming, the amendment must be deferred to Report Stage.
Does that mean that it cannot be taken to-day?
Not without unanimous agreement.
If by chance we do not reach Section 22 until to-morrow, the Minister thinks this amendment should come before us then, but if the Minister has such scattered views on this Bill that he cannot get his amendments framed in time, why should we be asked, when we are on Section 21, to consider an amendment to Section 22?
The Deputy will not be asked to do so, as the amendment will be submitted on Report Stage.
It arises out of last night's debate.
SECTION 21.
Question again proposed: "That Section 21, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
Last evening, the Minister for Industry and Commerce chose to spend an hour reading extensive quotations from Memorandum No. 1, which was submitted by certain members of the Trade Union Congress who constituted a committee of inquiry appointed by the Trade Union Congress to investigate the question of the reorganisation of the trade union movement. The Minister, while artificially protesting that he had an open mind on the matter and wanted to maintain a judicial calm on the whole question, simply indulged in the most vigorous racial animosities in discussing this question of the reorganisation of the trade union movement. Memorandum No. 1 was called the Irish memorandum. Memorandum No. 2 was, evidently, called the English memorandum.
It was alleged that Memorandum No. 2 was written by people who had an English mind and who were anxious to solidify the British conception of trade unionism in this country. Of course, if the present Minister for Industry and Commerce had been sufficiently long in his job and if he had any experience of trade unionism, he would not commit himself to that perfectly idiotic statement.
Last night, in an effort to get sympathy for this Bill which nobody wants, the Minister told a heartrending story of an Irish carpenter who went to work in Cork as a member of the Irish National Union of Woodworkers and was prevented from working in Cork. Then the Minister read or rather misread and distorted by his quotations, a letter which was received by his predecessor from the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers which had its headquarters in Manchester. The Minister tried to give the impression that war was being made not merely on the Irish Government, but on the whole Irish nation by the letter which was received from the headquarters of that organisation. Of course, the facts are such that even a person of infantile mind could quite easily discern them and would not, on any intelligent examination of the letter, or any intelligent examination of the facts of the case, be led into making the recklessly intemperate statement made last night by the Minister.
The facts of the case are: that a carpenter, a member of the Irish National Union of Woodworkers, went to Cork to seek employment. There were no other members of that organisation in Cork, and the members of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, themselves all Corkmen, said to this person: "In order to preserve trade union solidarity here and not to permit the influx into Cork of a member of a union which has not other members in Cork, we will not work with you," and they decided that they would not permit that person to work. Apart from whatever view any of us as an individual might have as to a statement of that kind made by members of one organisation against a single member of another organisation, the main point is this: that the Minister last night tried to give the House the misleading impression that the people who were preventing this single member of an Irish union getting employment in Cork were Englishmen who wanted to prevent an Irish carpenter from getting employment. That Irish carpenter was prevented from getting employment, not by Englishmen, but by Cork men. Some of the people who were most active in preventing that member of an Irish union from getting employment were people who had good Old I.R.A. records, and some of them then, and up to recently, were very active supporters of the Government Party. This distressed carpenter, this member of an Irish union, was prevented from getting employment in Cork simply because some supporters of the Government Party, carpenters organised in another union, did not want to see this single member of an Irish union, which had no other members in Cork, coming into Cork and disturbing the solidarity which existed there in the carpentery trade.
The Minister last night, of course, was in a martial mood. He was prepared to flay everybody. From Irish trade unionists to the whole British nation, the Minister was willing to take them all on. He would insist that trade unions with headquarters in Britain came under the law of this country. They are bursting to come under the law of this country. The present position in the matter is that these unions have no legal existence to-day. They are being brought under the law of this country. I am not expressing any opinion on this matter at all, except that I want to try to burst the balloon which the Minister blew up for one hour last night. Those unions will not find the slightest difficulty in conforming to the law of this country. The Minister is to make the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers conform to the law of this country. Let us see what will happen. The Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers will probably be required under this Bill to deposit £4,000 in order to carry on here; £4,000 in trustee stock; probably £4,000 worth of stock of the Bradford, Manchester, or Leeds Corporation, on which those corporations are paying probably 2½ per cent. at present. That security will be deposited here in our courts.
Will it?
Do not forget his amendment—his back answer.
The Deputy had better look at the Bill. He will see that the securities must be approved.
Approved securities like the peat factory, for instance, on which we lost £206,000. This organisation will take over £4,000 of its securities and deposit them with the Irish courts. It will get the interest on those securities and thereafter it can function in this country with all the confirmation which the Bill will give it. The Irish union, a small organisation of which the Cork carpenter was a member, if it cannot raise £2,000 will be wiped out of existence. Then the position under this Bill will be, notwithstanding the Minister's amendment, that if the Irish union cannot raise £2,000 for its deposit, there will be no question of the tribunal having to make a determination that only the other organisation can organise the workers, because the smaller organisation, the Irish organisation, will have failed to raise the £2,000, and the matter will not call for determination at all. The position then will be this. This organisation, which the Minister was to make war upon because it had its headquarters in Manchester, this organisation which will perhaps comply with the law, under this Bill will be solidified in our legislation and in our juridical code. The Irish organisation, because it cannot raise £2,000, will be completely wiped out of existence, and this by the Minister who shed crocodile tears last night about an Irish carpenter who could not get employment in Cork. There never was a more dishonest statement made in this House. The Minister must have known well when making that statement that he was wiping out the small Irish union under this Bill and entrenching the people with whom he was having the oratorical sham battle last night.
The Minister last night quoted at length from memorandum No. 1. He described memorandum No. 1, which was submitted by certain members of the Trade Union Congress, as the Irish memorandum. That memorandum was signed by five members of that commission of inquiry, not by a majority. The entire membership of the commission was 12, and five of them signed what the Minister described as the Irish memorandum. Memorandum No. 2 was signed by five other members. Four of these were Irishmen, and, in respect of their conception of Irish nationality, it is at least as good as that of the five members who signed memorandum No. 1. Four of the five members who signed memorandum No. 2, disagreeing with memorandum No. 1, were Irishmen with good national records and a good Irish outlook. The other man was not an Irishmen. It would be awkward for Fianna Fáil if a person who was not born in this country was not entitled to express an opinion on legislation affecting this country, or if he were to be prevented from signing a report concerning the affairs of this country. Those five people who signed memorandum No. 2 are well known in the trade union movement and their names are honoured in the trade union movement. They can stand up in this city or any other city in this country and talk to trade unionists, and when they talk on trade union issues, there is greater respect and regard for their opinion than for the bogus opinion on that subject expressed here by the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
They are officials of unions registered in Great Britain. The others are officers of unions registered in Ireland. That is the difference.
The Minister quoted from Memorandum I. Memorandum I. sought to carry out a radical reorganisation of the trade union movement, an attempt which I said before was like the mistake, in my opinion, of the boy who tried to get too many nuts out of the jar. It was an attempt to take steps far too rapidly, steps, in my opinion, and it is a personal opinion, which would have brought about the disorganisation which the Minister seeks to bring about under this Bill. Memorandum II. was, I thought, a good and prudent document. I did not agree with its terms in certain respects. I signed Memorandum III., but if I were asked to express a choice as between I. and II., I would prefer the sensibility and the sanity of Memorandum II. as compared with Memorandum I., and I say that as a member of an Irish organisation.
Now it is out.
In case you did not hear the rest of it, I say that as a person who was never a member of a trade union having its headquarters outside this country. Memoranda I. and II. were discussed at the Trade Union Congress. Memorandum I. was defeated at the Trade Union Congress and Irish trade unions voted to defeat that memorandum. The Minister gave the impression that it was defeated through the machinations of persons who were the representatives of English unions. These were Irish people. There are many Irishmen in this country representing British organisations, as the Minister knows, men who have carried out work in this country for British organisations. That has not prevented their being Irishmen, nor has it prevented their expressing an intelligent opinion on Irish affairs. Many of the people who voted to defeat Memorandum I. at that conference were Irishmen and they were assisted in defeating the memorandum by others who represented trade unions that had their headquarters in this country.
What does Memorandum II say? I do not want to waste the time of the House, as the Minister did last night, by reading the whole of the memorandum, but here is some good rough, sound commonsense which the Minister might try to inject into himself:—
"The proposals in Memorandum I, signed by five of our colleagues, as purporting to cover item 1 of the terms of reference are, in our opinion, much too far-reaching. The suggestion that the entire trade union movement in Ireland should be scrapped and that there should be substituted ten industrial groups is quite unworkable, arising out of the fact that many workers and craftsmen in particular are engaged in many, if not all, the proposed categories of unions. Many of these craft unions have histories going back a long way, and to suggest that the many and varied crafts in the categories or groups could be or should be combined in one union is a proposal that could not be entertained; while agreeing that voluntary amalgamation along the lines suggested might be assisted by every possible means."
Memorandum II deals with certain other aspects of reorganisation and it goes on again to give some sound views to the Minister when it says:—
"Trade unions are voluntary organisations for the protection of the organised workers, and while we agree that the non-trade unionist is a nuisance, as stated in Memorandum I, and should be eliminated by every legitimate means, we cannot agree with the suggestion or inference that might be drawn from Memorandum I that we favour State compulsion in this regard."
This Bill is State compulsion in excelsis. While the Minister tries to suggest that the authors of Memorandum I are in favour of this Bill, I shall wager with the Minister that every single member who signed Memorandum I has nothing but condemnation for the terms of this Bill. If the Minister has any doubts on that matter, I shall produce evidence, if the Minister challenges my statement, on the next reading of this Bill. This is not an attempt to reorganise the trade union movement. It is an attempt to disunite the trade union movement, to intensify whatever difficulties may exist at the moment, to put a premium on the poaching of members and on the competition for members, to break up small organisations, mainly Irish organisations, because they cannot put up the ransom demanded by the Minister under the Bill.
The Minister tried to get some consolation from quoting the Report of the Trade Union Congress for the year 1934-35. The congress then expressed the opinion that to encourage the amalgamation of smaller organisations is something which is desirable, but that the way in which that is done is important. We are not encouraging voluntary amalgamation in this case. We are insisting that if the smaller organisation cannot pay the Ministerial ransom, that organisation must go out of existence. It has to amalgamate if it is to protect itself from another organisation which, in fact, may be younger in growth than the smaller organisation. That amalgamation is being brought about by trampling on every feeling of craft pride, every tradition which members of an organisation highly and rightly value, by compelling these organisations to go out of existence simply because they cannot conform to the type of regimentation envisaged in this Bill.
We are now discussing Section 21. Section 21 is the section relied upon to produce a smaller number of unions, by promoting more cohesion in the trade union movement. That is an illusion. There will be no such development. Anybody who has got the most perfunctory acquaintance with the trade union movement will know that that section is going to give rise to an intensive campaign for poaching members and, on this occasion, with the authority of the State for that poaching. One organisation under Section 21 may go to the tribunal and ask the tribunal to transfer to it all the members of another organisation. The tribunal may concede the claim by the applicant organisation. If it does, then the applicant organisation in future will be entitled to recruit all the members of that craft to membership of its organisation. The other organisation, the one against which judgment has been given will, however, still be entitled to continue in existence in this country. It will still be entitled to get membership. Its membership will be of a type that will entitle it to exist in this country for the next 50 years. If that happens you do not reduce the number of organisations. You get the same number of organisations and you keep in existence the smaller type of organisation.
If the Minister imagines that organisations which were here before he was born, and which have honoured histories, organisations which trade unionists recognise are rendering valuable service to the working-class movement, are going to be put out of existence by a determination of the three creatures who will constitute the tribunal, then the Minister is making the biggest mistake of his life. If he imagines that other trade unions are going to stand by while they see an old and honourable organisation put out of existence, the Minister is harbouring an illusion which I think is a dangerous symptom for the country when it impregnates occupants of the Front Bench.
Section 21 is an encouragement to organisations to poach members from another organisation. It is an encouragement to disunity. It is an encouragement to steal members wherever you can get them, and that is done on this occasion with all the authority and all the approbation that the State can confer upon it. While the Trade Union Congress rightly wanted then, and now, a greater measure of unity, it wanted it on the basis of voluntary amalgamations. They are getting it now only on the basis of outlawing certain organisations. What I want Fianna Fáil Deputies to justify under this Bill is why they are going to outlaw the small Irish organisations that cannot put up £2,000, when all the large English organisations can put that money down with the utmost ease.
Will the Minister be prepared to take a vote of Irish organisations only on this Bill? He talked last night of Memorandum No. 1 and referred to it as the creation of Irishmen. Will the Minister allow the question of proceeding with or abandoning this Bill to be decided by the votes of persons who are trade unionists and are members only of an Irish organisation? Will be have the hardihood to do that? If he confines the ballot to every man born in Ireland and a member of an Irish trade union, I say deliberately that this Bill will be defeated by a 50 to 1 majority, and I think the Minister knows that.
The members of the Fianna Fáil Party are being dragooned in order to vote for this Bill, which is opposed by every Irish trade unionist. Even if the vote were confined to Irishmen who are members of organisations across the Channel, I believe this Bill would be defeated. The rank and file of unions which have their headquarters across the Channel would be against it. The Minister said that the Trade Union Congress wanted certain things done. The Trade Union Congress is opposed to this Bill. The congress will meet in a fortnight's time. Will the Minister agree to leave the question of proceeding with or abandoning this Bill to a vote that would be recorded there by the delegates elected to the congress? The Minister dare not do that because he knows perfectly well that an overwhelming majority of the votes would be cast against the Bill, and I think something more than that would be done at the Trade Union Congress in regard to this Bill.
What the Trade Union Congress desire, voluntary amalgamations, is now being brought about by outlawing the small organisations with long and honourable histories. That is being done, not in the interests of trade unionism or of Irish organisations over whom the Minister shed crocodile tears; it is being done against the wishes of Irish trade unionists and in spite of the efforts of those who are only concerned with creating a centre of gravity for Irish trade union organisations.
This Bill is thoroughly bad and disreputable. It will be unworkable from the point of promoting the best interests of the Irish trade union movement. Section 21 is the worst and most reactionary section and the Minister will live long to regret that he was ever associated with the introduction of a measure like this. The unions which the Minister is now trying to smash or outlaw will exist long after the name of the Minister has been forgotten, but for many years trade unionists will not forget his association with such a dastardly piece of legislation.
The Minister spent 45 minutes last night quoting from documents. He has received a fairly clear answer to all his quotations and a very definite challenge. He has been informed of at least one place where competent persons can arrive at a decision in regard to this legislation. There is one thing we are entitled to know from the Minister arising out of the speech he made last night. Is it his intention, or the intention of the Government, to wipe out the English unions, as he calls them, in this country? If that is the desire, why is it not indicated in the Bill? If that is not the desire, why all the bombastics from the Minister about English unions versus Irish unions?
I was never a member of an English union, but the English unions, as they are called, are made up in this country exclusively of Irishmen. Of course, the Minister is not aware of it, but those unions were started in this country by Irishmen at a time when they had no other protection. They did very good work for Irish working men, and it was through the machinery of those unions that they secured the conditions which they have lived under for many years. We had all sorts of humbug and hypocrisy from the Minister last night; we had him waving a flag over his head, and the only thing missing was the brass band. One would think from the speech he delivered that he was at some cross-roads instead of sitting on the front bench of a national Parliament.
He talked a lot about Irish unions. This Bill will have the effect of wiping out many Irish unions. There is not an amalgamated union in this country that cannot conform to every section of this Bill. The Minister should not try deliberately to mislead the House and the country. That is what he attempted to do last night. He attempted to play on the passions of the people instead of appealing to their reason. Deputy Meaney suggested that we should discuss this Bill in a rational way, observing the impact of reason upon reason. There was very little reasoning in the Minister's 60 minutes' speech last night—none whatever.
The Deputy began by referring to my 45 minutes' speech.
I said the Minister was quoting for 45 minutes. To-day, after question time, the Minister butted in about the way time was being wasted and about obstruction. How could one describe the Minister's speech last night? It was wholly irrelevant, disorderly and dishonest. We have been presented with an amendment which we will be asked to discuss on the next stage. It represents a spiteful back-answer from the Minister arising out of the speech made by Deputy Norton at 10.20 last night. That is the origin of this amendment. It is just about as, pretty a piece of floundering as one could imagine. It is an attempt to do something——
It is not under discussion now.
Well, I suppose we will have another day. I want to put this point to the House. The Minister is giving legal protection for the first time to amalgamated unions, and is for the first time wiping out 100 per cent. Irish Unions. On the section that is going to achieve that result, he tried deliberately to mislead Deputies into believing that there is something in it that is going to put shackles upon the English or amalgamated unions. Far from it. Deputy Norton dealt with the case of two unions. I could mention many others. Apart from the effect of the section on either the English or the amalgamated unions, one certain fact is that it is going to bring turmoil and disorder into the trade union movement here. If the Minister did not know that when drafting and introducing this Bill he ought to know it now. I believe he does know it, and that he is convinced of the fact but, notwithstanding that, he is going to persist apparently in putting it through and letting the country put up with the consequences. That is the Minister's attitude. The Minister may not have to suffer very much from the effects of the operation of the Bill, but the community will suffer, and many trade unions, the members of which feel secure and satisfied with their unions, will suffer. Instead of wiping out bitterness, hatred and rivalry we will have that on a scale on which we never had it before. That is what Deputies are asked to vote for in Section 21. I put it to Deputies that if they vote in favour of the section, after its effects have been explained, they will have to take upon themselves the consequences that will flow from its passage.
We have had difficulty in understanding what the Minister said on this Bill, and what the results are going to be. We had a discussion clouded by all kinds of irrelevancies and tactics of various kinds on the part of the Minister. Surely, we ought not to have the position additionally clouded by the way in which he attempted to cloud the discussion last night. I was not here when the Minister spoke, but I read this in one newspaper:—
"The attempt to reorganise the Irish trade union movement was defeated by the English trade unions, said the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Mr. MacEntee, in the Dáil last night on the Trade Union Bill."
We ought not to have our judgment warped and our minds confused into thinking that this is a Bill to protect Irish trade unions against English trade unions, or to protect Irish organisations from being subject to anything but Irish law. When the Minister adverted to English trade unions I am reminded of what Davis said:
"For much that England did in literature, politics and war we are, as men, grateful."
Many people in Ireland have reason to be grateful that they were able to build their trade unions on the encouragement given and the progress brought about by the trade union movement in Great Britain. As soon as a separate State was set up here many men, who had been in English trade unions, thought fit to examine the position and they found that they are as tied to some of the connections with trade unions that they developed as men who have invested in English insurance policies or in outside investments are tied to them. One of the biggest trade unions in this country, which is affiliated with unions in Great Britain, was, after the Treaty, offered a very substantial sum of money by an English trade union to cut adrift, as part of their investments in that union, but for Irish reasons, and for sound economic reasons, whatever about the political side, they decided that they would be unjust to themselves and to the people dependent on them if they were to break away. The contact that has remained is simply the contact that any person with an insurance policy taken out with a company outside this country would have. That is a matter that others can deal with. I ask that the House should not be obscured by the suggestion that an attempt to reorganise the Irish trade unions was defeated by English trade unions. I do not know what all the row here is about if there is no very highly organised trade union organisation or if it is not growing, and if what we are witnessing is not its growing pains.
It is unworthy of the Minister to drag across this discussion anything that would obscure what is likely to be the result. I asked the Minister last night to let us know what was going to be the result and the number of unions likely to be left as negotiating unions when the section is in operation. A number of unions that have lodged deposits and become authorised trade unions may, as a result of the operations of the tribunal, be deprived of the power to negotiate for their people. What is going to happen to them? In the development of the Bill we will have a certain number of trade unions operating and doing good work harmoniously, as well as constructively, not recognised in future for negotiating purposes. By reason of the operations of the tribunal they are going to be dropped into a category and will be prevented operating as authorised trade unions. They will be prevented adding to their numbers and told they would not be allowed to carry on negotiations in future, even though they made deposits. The House is entitled to get some explanation from the Minister of the kind of unions that will be left in the different categories, those not allowed to negotiate at all, and those likely to become negotiating unions that may be dropped. The Minister mentioned the bakers' case. I ask him to refer to the Census of Production, Occupations Volume, and see what relation in size and location Dublin bakers and Cork Bakers bear to those in other occupations that can be segregated into classes, and with that information in front of him, we are entitled to some outline of what the position will be when the tribunal is getting down to its work. We have nothing now but all sorts of confusion, the latest being what developed last night.
I should like to avail of this opportunity to protest against the dastardly speech of the Minister last night. A Bill that is intended by the Government to bring about order, unity and regulation in the trade union movement is one that we hold is not going to achieve that. Whatever hope might have been entertained, even the framers of the Bill can no longer have any hope of that coming to pass after the Minister's outburst last night. It was a wilful statement, deliberately made, and it could have only one purpose, to drive a wedge into the trade union body between members of unions whose headquarters are across the Channel, and members of unions having their headquarters here. As if his Order 83 and his Trade Union Bill were not sufficient to shatter the trade union movement, he made his final attempt last night and fired his bombshell from half-past nine until 15 minutes past ten. He read and misread and deliberately misrepresented the statements he was reading from the Trade Union Congress Report, 1934-35, and the Report of the Commission. A week before he objected to less lengthy readings from the Encyclicals by members of the opposite benches. He proceeded last night, taking short sentences away from their context, completely upsetting the sense. I say he purposely avoided the point that was put to him three times as to why he would not read Memorandum I. when he was quoting No. 2. He avoided dealing with the sensible part of the Trade Union Congress report. He stated that that congress was completely jockeyed by one man who came over from England and put the Irish trade union movement into his pocket. Some good man told the fairy tale to the Minister, and he professed to have believed it.
This long drawn out barrage that has taken place in this House since Tuesday last and which has caused serious regrets in the minds of many Deputies, if it has done nothing else, has definitely exposed the Minister's mind. All his protestations that he had nothing but the best intentions with regard to the trade union movement are thrown to the wind. His inner soul has been disclosed in his outburst of last night. I can tell the Minister that his outburst of last night, plus this Bill, will not destroy the trade union movement. It will still carry on when he will have ceased to be Minister, as Deputy Norton has told him. Notwithstanding this effort at a Bill and notwithstanding what he has shown to be his outlook and his intention to try to drive the workers back to the 1825 period, he is not going to succeed. As Deputy Norton put it to him a while ago, if there is any sincerity in his protestations that he is only out to try to put the movement on an ordered basis, surely the people to judge that would be the elected representatives of all the unions in the country whether their headquarters are here or elsewhere. If he would submit that point to the Trade Union Congress and ask them for a determination, everybody would be prepared to abide by the result.
The Minister has no right whatever to try to impugn unions with headquarters across the channel who have done honourable and noble work in building up the unions in this country. They have stood loyally by their contracts with their members here through all the years they have been here and membership of those unions has never been allowed to interfere with their members or prevent them from holding their heads erect as Irish citizens, as was clearly proved in the anti-conscription and hunger strikes that took place, which were led by men who were members of unions with headquarters elsewhere. The Minister seems to have forgotten that and gives an exhibition of the type of legislation we are having. We had to-day another exhibition of his petulance on a point as to whether an amendment should come on the Report Stage, but it was put out of action by the ruling of the Chair.
I say Section 21 is no better or no worse than the rest and before it goes to a vote I want to avail of this opportunity to protest. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has shown himself to be perfectly unworthy of being a Minister of a responsible Government in the effort he has made to disrupt and burst up whatever unity and solidarity there has been in the trade union movement. I only hope that his efforts will recoil in the reverse direction, in uniting the workers of the country to resist the efforts of the Minister and his type.
I also wish to deprecate this feud which the Minister has tried to start between Irish and English Unions. Anybody listening to the Minister last night would imagine that there were two different categories of people in these unions, one Englishmen and the other Irishmen, and that this struggle between the Irishmen and the Englishmen in the trade union movement had become a very serious matter. I speak with, I think, more authority than the Minister and probably more authority than any member of this House, because I have had experience by reason of the fact that I was for ten years chairman of the Workers' Council in Cork. I happened to be for ten years a member of the National Executive of the Trade Union Congress and on two occasions I presided at the congress. I have never seen that bitterness or that rivalry that the Minister refers to in those different unions. The unions with headquarters across the water were mainly craft unions. The Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers was quoted as one of them. These unions were functioning in this country long before there was any idea of a national resurgence in this country. These unions had conferred very many pecuniary benefits on their members. They had sickness benefits, death benefits, pension benefits. I know old trade unionists in Cork who are drawing pensions owing to their connection with some of those unions. Surely those facts were an inducement to members to join up with such unions. I want to say that because the Minister has put the whole thing in a very wrong light. He has given the House and, I think, the country the idea that the English unions predominated and dominated the Irish trade union movement. Such is not the case.
I have never in my experience seen any direct interference from the headquarters of any of those unions across the water with our own domestic affairs. As I say, I have a long experience of the trade union movement. I am a member of an Irish union, and I hold as strong views nationally as the Minister or anybody in this House. I do not bow to anybody as far as that question is concerned, and if I thought that there was any interference with the domestic affairs of members of those unions I would be one of the first to protest, but I have never seen it. During the period of national resurgence I referred to, some of the members of those unions having headquarters across the water broke away and formed what they called Irish unions. To the credit of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers in Cork, none of them did that.
They did not want Irish unions.
Although some of their members were the best fighting men in the Black and Tan period in Cork or in Ireland.
It was not because of the unions they were that.
The Deputy should not talk of that. I might be tempted to say something. They did not see anything derogatory to their nationality or national outlook in being members of those unions. They still remain, because they regard the trade union as their sheet anchor as far as their domestic and economic affairs are concerned.
The Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers was a typical union of that type in Cork. During all that time they preserved their solidarity as a distinct unit, although there was an attempt made to break that solidarity, under Government influence, on that job in Cork. There is no doubt about that. This member was brought down from Dublin and inserted into the work in Cork, while the local Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and members of the building trade had a definite agreement with the employers in Cork that none but the members of the unions then functioning in Cork would be recognised as eligible for employment. If that was not an effort by the trade unions in Cork to keep their movement in order and to maintain its solidarity I do not know what it was, but, as I say, an attempt was made to disrupt that. If the attempt had succeeded, I suppose we would have an outcry from the Minister with regard to the trade union movement in Cork. The attempt did not succeed in Cork because the members of the Building Federation, and the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers in particular, had sense enough to see what it would lead to. There was no necessity for another organisation of carpenters. Both organisations had seen the evils of that position already operating in Dublin. Instead, then of quoting this as an example of—what shall I call it—the high-handedness or impatience of the English union, as the Minister said last night, I think that action of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers should be applauded. They did not want to have other unions starting up. The Minister has told us that inter-union disputes were responsible for the introduction of this Bill in the first instance. The people in Cork who were members of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers saw the position that would arise if you had another union of carpenters brought in. That was the sole reason why this man was refused work in Cork. I think that, if the Minister examines the position impartially, he will see that the action taken was completely justified.
Turning to Section 21, there is no doubt that its operation is going to create the greatest difficulty if and when the Bill is put into operation. The section lays down that when
"an application is made to the tribunal by a trade union which claims to have organised a majority of workmen of any particular class for a determination that such trade union alone shall have the right to organise workmen of that class, the tribunal, after hearing such application, and having considered all the circumstances of the case"
shall either grant or refuse the determination. My submission is that the first thing the tribunal will have to do is to decide what type of workmen should be in a particular class, and to define "class." We tried to get from the Minister last night what he has in mind about class. If he has any idea of how a trade union movement is composed he will know that there are various groups of workmen who can be described as belonging to a particular class or not. Take the example that was given last night—the Distributive Workers' Union. In it you have clerks, porters, grocers' assistants, and various other types of people. Will each of these groups have to be regarded as a class under the section, or does it mean that all grouped together will be regarded as a class? The tribunal must try to ascertain what was in the mind of the Minister or of the Legislature with regard to a definition of class.
We tried to elicit from the Minister last night what, in his opinion, comprised a class. I want to submit again that he should be more helpful on this point. The first thing the tribunal will be faced with is to give a determination with regard to a group of workers in a particular class. That is going to create endless difficulty for the members of the tribunal. From my connection with the trade union movement I can visualise how difficult it will be to define a particular class. My definition might not be the definition that the Minister or the tribunal would accept. There can be as many definitions as there are members on the tribunal. That, I submit, is going to be one of their big difficulties, to arrive at a common denominator on that question. Sub-section (2) of the section provides that:—
Before granting... a determination that a particular trade union shall alone have the right to organise workmen of a particular class, the tribunal may, if it thinks proper, require such trade union to satisfy the tribunal that the grant of such determination will not affect adversely any rights or claims to benefits enjoyed for the time being by any of such workmen as members of a trade union.
As I pointed out earlier on, the members of some of those trade unions, with headquarters at the other side, did enjoy and do still enjoy certain statutory rights to benefits. Suppose that, under this section, one of those unions is debarred from recruiting any more members of the particular type it caters for, what will the position be of the members who have been drawing benefits from it, and have to transfer to another union? This sub-section does not define exactly what their rights will be. It says that the tribunal may, if it thinks proper, require such a trade union to satisfy it and so on, but there is no direction in the section as to the procedure that union will have to follow in order that it may be in a position to make good any claims to benefit that may be made against it.
I should like to get a clarification of the exact purpose of that section. Does it compel a union, which takes in members who have enjoyed benefits from some other union, still to give them a statutory right to those benefits? Is there compulsion in it? As I read it, the other union is not so compelled, and there is no machinery set up to safeguard the rights of these members. It simply expresses a pious hope that any rights or claims to benefits enjoyed for the time being by any such workmen as members of a trade union will not be adversely affected. The section should not be embodied in the Bill because, as has been pointed out, and, I think, very rightly, its general effect will be to create endless difficulty in the trade union movement. There is no doubt that it is the vital section so far as the disruption of the trade union movement is concerned. It is the section which is going to cause that disruption, and the Minister would be very well advised to withdraw it, and to reconsider the proposal in one of these memoranda that voluntary amalgamation is the only way to deal with any difficulties which have arisen in the movement, rather than compulsory amalgamation which is the basis of this section.
There is one point which occurs to me in connection with the section. Are the decisions of the tribunal to be unanimous, and, if so, can there be a decision?
There will be decisions of the tribunal by majority vote, I suppose.
Mr. Morrissey
There is nothing in the section about that.
No, it is not necessary to say that the tribunal shall decide by a majority.
Mr. Morrissey
Can they reach any decision?
They can reach a decision by a majority.
Mr. Morrissey
But there is nothing in the section about it.
It is not necessary.
Mr. Morrissey
The Minister will find out.
Mr. Byrne
The point raised by Deputy Morrissey is very serious. I asked yesterday where the people composing the tribunal were to be drawn from. Suppose one member has certain prejudices in relation to a union with which he was associated in days gone by. Is his vote with that of the chairman to be taken as a decision which may affect a body of workmen which may have had disputes regarding the line of demarcation of their work?
One of the most serious things the tribunal will have to decide is as to whom they will hear in connection with any special kind of work, and if there are two bodies catering for the one type of work and if there is a line of demarcation as between them which has caused disputes before, and if the body has to go before the tribunal, will they have an opportunity of objecting to the tribunal if there is somebody on it who has, in days gone by, given a decision affecting their trade? The matter of the rights of those who will go before the tribunal is one to which the Minister must give consideration. I ask the Minister to deal with Deputy Morrissey's point as to the means by which they will arrive at a decision. Will it be a unanimous decision and, if there are only three members on the tribunal, will it be a two to one decision? Will the chairman have a vote or a casting vote? If two members of the tribunal disagree, what will be the position of the chairman? I think that an organised body dealing with a certain type of work should have the right to object to a member of the tribunal, if that member at any time in the past has given a decision against the type of work in which they were engaged.
I think the points raised would more appropriately be raised on Section 19 on the constitution of the tribunal itself, and I have already indicated that I propose, on Report Stage, to bring fresh proposals before the House in relation to that tribunal, when I shall definitively deal with the points raised, because the significance of them may be materially altered when the exact form of the tribunal I propose is before the House.
Mr. Morrissey
Is the Bill going to be recommitted?
My speech of last night has been referred to in terms which are seldom used in this assembly. It has been stigmatised as dastardly— a hard word and an unpleasant word, with unpleasant meanings. Why has it been used? Because I have exposed the real inwardness of the opposition to the Bill. I have shown the ulterior motives which animated those who have obstructed the passage of the Bill through the House, and I have exposed the forces which are behind them and have shown that, once again, we are confronted with an attempt to prevent the reorganisation of the Irish trade union movement so as to rid it of the abuses which have been disastrous in their reactions, not only upon the trade union movement, but upon the industrial development of the country.
I said last night that when honest, earnest Irishmen addressed themselves to this question, to the remedying and eradication of these evils which are generally admitted by the trade union movement itself to exist, which are unanimously admitted by the leaders of the Irish trade union movement to exist, their constructive, far-seeing proposals for the reorganisation of this movement of Irish workingmen were defeated at the special conference by the votes of those who represent the British trade unions in this country, and I repeat that statement categorically to-day. I say that the leader of the opposition to the proposals contained in what I once again describe as the Irish memorandum, the leader in favour of the British memorandum, the memorandum which was drawn up by the officials of the British trade unions operating in this country, was the General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, who crossed specially for the occasion and who came bringing with him other battalions. We had present at this special conference Mr. Squance, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, who crossed specially to this conference and voted at it; we had Mr. Borlase, of the National Union of Seamen, who crossed specially to this conference and voted at it; we had Mr. Gould, General Secretary of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, who crossed specially to this conference and voted at it.
Why not?
I am not denying their right to vote, but I am showing what are the forces behind this agitation, behind, mind you, not merely the opposition which we are meeting from the Labour Party but behind the opposition which we are meeting from such patriotic gentlemen as Deputy Mulcahy. I have already referred to the fact that three representatives of those unions with their headquarters in Great Britain crossed over here to vote at this conference. Mr. Merson, Assistant Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers—who presumably came over as a deputy for the general secretary of that body— also crossed to vote. I told the House last night of the high esteem in which the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers holds the Government of this country——
He is not the only one of that opinion.
——and this State.
That opinion is general.
Oh, I see; so Deputy Murphy is also in alliance with the English union when it flouts a decision of an arbitration court in this country. We know where we are now.
You will know soon.
Then we had Mr. Deaken, then Assistant General Secretary of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union, and now acting general secretary. He also crossed to vote. Let me repeat, those were the gentlemen who led the opposition to the Irish memorandum at that conference, and who controlled the votes by which the Irish memorandum and the proposals of the Irish trade unions were defeated. Since we are told that all Irishmen in those trade unions with their headquarters in Great Britain were in favour of this Memorandum No. II and against Memorandum No. I which was drafted by Irishmen, drafted by the representatives of trade unions with their headquarters in this country, why was it necessary, if the British unions wanted this work done by them, to send over men specially for the occasion? Was it that, without sending over the big guns, without sending over Mr. Squance, Mr. Borlase, Mr. Merson, Mr. Deaken, and Mr. Gould, there might be some danger that Memorandum No. 1 would be adopted? Was it that, after all, the Irishmen for once might make up their minds as to what was to be done for the Irish trade union movement in this country?
They are more bitterly opposed to this Bill than anyone else.
Was it because it was felt that perhaps the Irish influence might prevail at this special conference that it was necessary for those British unions to send over their heavy artillery? I am not for a moment contending that members of British unions in this country have not rendered signal service to this country. I am not for a moment contending, either, that members of British unions have not been very friendly to this country. But I do say this, that it would be regarded as an unpardonable impertinence for Irish trade unions to send over their big guns to an English trade union conference to tell Englishmen, the workers of Great Britain, how their movement was going to be run in future. Speaking as an Irishman who is not unfriendly or who is not unsympathetic to the British trade union movement, who indeed is very sensible of what it has done for workers in general, I say that, looking at it in the most impartial way, it was an impertinent proceeding for those representatives of British unions to come over here and tell Irishmen how they were to vote in relation to a proposal as to how the Irish trade union movement was to be organised. I want to repeat categorically what I said last night, that those proposals of the Irish trade unions to secure a far-reaching reorganisation of the Irish trade union movement were defeated at the special conference by the votes which were controlled by those English gentlemen, representatives of the British trade unions who came over here specially for the occasion.
That is not so.
I want to repeat what I said last night, so that there may be no doubt about it, that the President of the Dublin Trades Council, and the leader of the Council of Action in Dublin which has been fomenting the opposition in Dublin against this Bill, and working up the agitation against it, is a member of that Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers which was responsible for writing to an Irish Minister the letter which I read to the House last night. In regard to this issue of vital importance which was raised in that letter, Deputy Norton endeavoured to make the House believe that those gentlemen in Cork, those members of this Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers in Cork, acted entirely of their own volition, and that, after all, the headquarters of the union in Manchester had nothing to do with the attitude that they had taken up. Well, I should like, in that connection, to repeat a few significant passages from this letter.
I heard you, Sir, yesterday quoting a certain Standing Order. I think this is about the fourth time we have had this from the Minister, and immediately the Minister sits down we will be accused again of obstruction.
I am not clear as to the point of order raised by the Deputy. If it is an allegation that the Minister is repeating himself——
Yes, Sir.
Well, unfortunately on this section there has been much repetition by Deputies—not of the matter the Minister is now discussing, though I have heard that indeed on the amendment and twice on the section. As I did not hear the Minister last night, I cannot say that he is repeating himself.
I propose to rebut, if I can, the attempt of Deputy Norton to whitewash this trade union, and to make the workers of Cork the scapegoats for the policy of this British trade union in this country. In order to do that it is necessary for me to remind the House of certain portions of the letter which I read to the House last night.
Here is one portion of it:
"The Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers represents all its members irrespective as to the countries (or the Governments of those countries) in which they may be employed, and it will continue so to act and protect and safeguard the interests of its members as it thinks best and according to the general rules of our organisation."
The point at issue there was that this society refused to accept the findings of an industrial court set up in this country to consider a question which was in dispute, the question as to whether a member of the National Union of Woodworkers should be permitted to work in Cork on a Government job. The society, here in this letter, says that it proposes "to protect the interests of its members as it thinks best", and the way in which it thought best to protect the interests of its members in that particular case was to refuse to honour the decision of the court of inquiry and, accordingly, to continue to support and sustain, in their refusal to work with brother Irishmen, the members of this union in Cork. Then, as we go on, we come, in the letter, to what is almost an ultimatum. This is a case in which we have a British union claiming—what Governments sometimes try to claim— extra territorial rights. They are not even meticulous in the manner in which they address the Minister, which at least indicates a lack of courtesy. They had had communications from the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in which his title appeared in English, but apparently we are too small fry in the eyes of the officials of this union which, Deputy Norton said last night, had world-wide ramifications. As he said, they even had members in the United States and other countries. It was a world-empire so far as carpenters are concerned and, of course, we of the lesser breeds have to suffer if we want to get a job for an Irish carpenter at his own trade in his own country. The letter says:
"If, as stated, the Minister of Industry will have to take steps to deal with the position..."
that is, to ensure that an Irishman may get a job at his own trade in his own country,
"... then it may also be necessary for this Society to take steps, through the British trade union movement, to see that a trade union has the right, in whichever country its members may be employed, to protect their interests..."
again, this is the claim for extraterritorial rights,
"... against any other union that may seek to destroy it simply because its headquarters are not in a particular country."
Now, there was no question here of seeking to destroy a trade union having headquarters in another country. All that was involved in this dispute—let me repeat—was the right of an Irish carpenter, belonging to a trade union having its headquarters in Ireland, to work at a job in Cork.
And you are wiping out that union in this Bill.
I am being accused now of wiping out an Irish union, but listen to what follows, and we shall see who is responsible—and, mind you, with regard to the letter from which I am quoting, they are not now pleading it was the Cork workers: they are taking full responsibility for everything that was done in Cork. The letter goes on to say:—
"It is the considered opinion of my Executive Council that the Irish National Union of Woodworkers was formed with the deliberate intention of preventing this Society from continuing to operate in the Irish Free State, and it is our Irish Free State membership that has refused to leave the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers to join up with the Irish National Union of Woodworkers."
Now, I am not questioning the assertion in the latter part of that sentence, but I am drawing attention to the fact that it was expressed there that it is the considered opinion of the Executive Council of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers that the Irish National Union of Woodworkers was formed with the deliberate intention of preventing the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers from continuing to operate in the Irish Free State.
I think that portions of this letter which I have read, if there were any room for doubt in the matter at all,— particularly the last part of the letter which I have read—make it clear that the members of the society in Cork were simply carrying out the official policy of the society. The policy of the society is laid down by its controlling officers, and, accordingly, there is no substance whatsoever in the case which was made by Deputy Norton in exculpation of the action of this society and of its officers in what I, at any rate, think was an unjustifiable interference with the rights and liberties of Irishmen, and particularly the natural right of an Irishman to work in his own country and, let me repeat, at his own trade.
Now, let me deal with the next point which Deputy Norton put forward as a justification for this British union. It must be remembered that Deputy Norton has been trying to justify the attitude of this trade union with its headquarters in Great Britain. The next point which Deputy Norton put forward in justification for this British Union was that a member of the Irish National Union of Woodworkers came down to Cork from Dublin.
That is not where he came from at all.
Oh, yes. We were told that by Deputies Norton and Hurley.
That is not true.
It is not true that he did not come from Dublin?
I did not say so.
Well, at any rate, the Deputy left the House under that impression. At least, that is the impression that I formed.
The Minister said he came from there.
I did not once say where this Irish carpenter came from. However, that point is of no particular significance. What I want to say is this—and I want to say it in order that it may not have to be dealt with again—that the right of Irish carpenters to work in Cork, if they happened to be members of an Irish union, first arose in 1934, when an Army engineering company in Cork had occasion to employ a carpenter. They recruited the carpenter, in due course, through the employment exchange in Cork. The man had not been on the job more than a week or two when representations were made by representatives of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers to the effect that he would have to go off the job because he was not a member of the society.
Was he English?
No, but they were acting on behalf of the English society, because, otherwise, they would have no locus standi at all. They were acting as members of this particular trade union, and it was only because of the fact that they were members of a particular trade union that they had the protection of the law as they did.
They had no protection at all.
We shall come to that question later on. The fact is that this workman had been on the job for about ten days when the Command engineer was told by the representatives of the British union that, if he did not get rid of this carpenter, all the men in the employment of the Southern Command in Cork City would withdraw their labour. The Department of Industry and Commerce had no cognisance of this occurrence at the time. We only became aware of it a year or two later when again in 1935 the question of employing more carpenters arose. Once again carpenters were employed by the Cork Command who happened to be members of the Irish union. Once again we had representations coming from the representatives of this British union, protesting against the fact that these Irish carpenters, members of an Irish society, were being given work and being paid out of public funds for doing the work of their trade in Cork. On this occasion, the matter was brought to a head, because the Minister for Defence refused to permit an Irish worker to be sacked from a Government contract simply because he happened to be a member of an Irish workers' trade union. We were brought into the matter and, as a consequence, an industrial court of inquiry was set up which found, notwithstanding what Deputy Hurley and Deputy Norton have said, that the action of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers in relation to the employment of carpenters in Cork city was unjustifiable.
Who constituted the court?
An arbitrator, anyhow—a Cork citizen.
Who was he?
A Cork citizen appointed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister whose function it is——
Who was the arbitrator?
He was Mr. Charles K. Murphy, M.A., LL.B., 53 South Mall, Cork. I suppose once again an Irishman will be turned down by Deputy Norton in favour of the secretary of the British trade union. Of course, if he had been an Englishman it would have been all right. It would have been put down as an attempt on the part of someone to split the Irish trade union movement. Mr. Charles K. Murphy, of 53 South Mall, Cork, was appointed to be the court, with the following terms of reference:-The consideration of the causes and circumstances of the trade dispute between the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and the Irish National Union of Woodworkers, in connection with the employment of certain workers and matters relevant thereto.
As I have said, the fault in this matter lay entirely with the British trade union. Mark this: the men who were employed in Cork were not imported from anywhere else, they were men taken from the Cork Labour Exchange. That disposes of the first point which has been raised. Secondly, it has been suggested by Deputy Norton that the men in Cork city acted of their own volition, and that they were not carrying out the general policy of the union in respect of the employment of Irishmen in Cork city.
I did not say the second thing at all.
That is what the Deputy said.
Not at all.
The Deputy started his speech last night by saying that the disemployment of a carpenter in Cork was on account of an objection by his fellow-workers in Cork.
He did not get any publication for it.
This issue arose again on the third occasion—still another time in Cork city — in December, 1939, when a job had to be done, again on a Government contract, in Cork Post Office. Once again an Irish carpenter belonging to an Irish trade union appeared on the job and once again we were threatened with a withdrawal of labour on the part of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers. On this occasion, however, a withdrawal of labour did not take place and the Irish carpenter remained on the job and completed his work. Why? Mark what Deputy Norton has been saving, that it was the Irish workers who were responsible for the disemployment of the Cork carpenter. It was the Cork workers who were responsible for the disemployment of one of their fellow-citizens. It was not the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers or the headquarters of that society. On this occasion, although there was threatened stoppage, there was only a temporary withdrawal of labour as an intimation was sent very definitely to those in control of that society, that we were sick and tired of this, and that, if Irish trade unionists would not be allowed to work at their trade in Cork, it would be necessary for us to consider what would happen to members of British trade unions seeking work in this country.
Make it illegal—intern them all.
At once the policy changed. We had not the big noises from Manchester telling us where to get off and dictating the type of Irishman who would find employment here in Ireland. As I said in the beginning, my speech last night has been described in terms of the greatest opprobrium. I do not mind, as long as the members of the Dáil, the workers of this country and the people generally understand what is behind this and understand that, notwithstanding all the pious protestations we have heard from the Labour Party, Deputy Mulcahy and others, the real opposition behind this Bill is from trade unions with headquarters outside the country.
That is a deliberate untruth.
They have been responsible from the beginning. They defeated the efforts of Irish trade unions to reform the Irish trade union movement so far back as 1939, and they have been endeavouring to defeat the efforts of an Irish Government to create circumstances in which the Irish trade union movement must now seriously devote itself to the task of reform. It has been alleged here, in relation to Memorandum No. 1, that it goes too far in seeking to coalesce and organise all the trade unions of this country into ten industrial groupings. We are not suggesting that that particular proposal should be adopted. All we are doing is this: we are giving to the Irish trade union movement as a whole a period of at least six months in which they must tackle seriously and earnestly this question of reform, in which it must rid itself of those abuses which are admitted by all to exist and make itself a truly constructive force in this country.
The Bill as it stands gives the trade unions six months in which to address themselves seriously to the task. If they do not do that, at the expiration of that period—or of such other period as the Minister responsible for the administration of the Bill may determine —we shall impose a condition which will make it imperative upon those trade unions which cannot exist independently to seek to amalgamate with kindred trade unions, and for those which overlap on each others activities to try as between themselves to draw a line of demarcation which will prevent these internecine strikes and baneful jealousies, which even Deputy Norton has admitted exist. That is the sum and substance of the Bill. We are not suggesting any precise amalgamations: we are not proposing any precise industrial groupings. We are leaving to the trade union movement as a whole the greatest possible liberty of action, but we are saying very definitely that, if that task is not done within six months—or perhaps a little longer, if that is found reasonable—we will introduce and impose conditions which will not permit the movement to defer any longer the tackling of that task.
No members of this House, and few persons outside, have greater facility for discovering mares' nests than has the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He specialises in that role, and revels in discovering things that inevitably and invariably turn out to be mares' nests. He has been engaged in this pastime of discovering plots since this Bill was brought in and, in the third Second-reading speech which he has just made, he has excelled himself in that respect. Last week, the Minister was on the track of an alliance between certain members of this House and certain gentlemen in Moscow. The scene has now shifted from the seat of Russian Bolshevism to the scene and seat of British Imperialism. This evening we are presented with a ready-made plot, concocted in England and aided by traitorous Irishmen, to split, dominate, take over and destroy the Irish trade union movement. This is, of course, utter rubbish and nobody knows that more certainly than the Minister who made the statement.
We have had experience of tactics of this kind in the past. We remember the plot that was discovered against certain well-known Irishmen struggling for the freedom of the country who were supposed to be assisted by the Germans. One of the finest slogans that could be utilised on that occasion to malign Irishmen was that they were being subsidised by German gold. I may, in passing, recall for the Minister's information that some of the people who uttered that slogan now occupy very high official positions in the gift of the Government. The Minister will be able to identify some of them. I might also recall that some of the people who uttered that slander were candidates for admission to membership of this House on the ticket of the Minister's Party. I ask the Minister not to follow bad example by discovering plots where no plots exist. There was nothing sinister in certain delegates from the English trade unions coming across here to a special conference. That is a feature of the Trade Union Congress every year. The Minister can be quite sure that his fears in that connection, if they have any reality—which I doubt— are entirely groundless.
The Minister has no case whatever. He is in the position of a bad advocate who, having no case, creates a diversion. The diversion consists of the scares he has been manufacturing during the past two or three days. During the whole course of his statement I heard very little reference to Section 21. I heard a great many references to splits, and that is a subject with which the Minister should deal very tenderly. He has been more associated with splits than the trade unionists of this country have been. He should be shy in saying much on this question, because I have seen him in a white sheet professing regret for some of the things for which he was responsible, arising out of the splits we had in this country in the past. There is a policy and plan to create splits, but it is the policy and plan of the Minister, and not of the trade unions. The Minister's scheme in this Bill is one to split and weaken the trade union movement. The Minister's scares and diversions are the camouflage with which his technique in this matter is being surrounded.
I was prepared to believe that the immature experience of the Minister in the Department of which he is, at present, the political boss, coupled with his failure to understand the trade union movement, were responsible for the misrepresentations in his statements to the House last evening. The Minister's persistence to-day in repeating those misrepresentations led me to believe that the allegations made against him—that he set out, not only to deceive this House, but to deceive the country in general, in so far as the general facts of the situation are concerned——
The Deputy accuses me of misrepresentation. Does he deny that Mr. Marchbank, Mr. Squance, Mr. Gould, Mr. Deaken, and these other gentlemen came over, voted at this conference and led the opposition?
I am not dealing with that aspect of the matter. I shall come to that later. In view of the Minister's attitude to-day, I think that the use of the words to which he took exception —"dastardly" and "intemperate"— was quite justified. I regard the Minister's attempt to debase and degrade trade union officials because of their British nationality as unworthy of the position which he holds in this House. It was a very mean attempt to debase and degrade people who had not an opportunity of defending themselves against the Minister's statements. I find it very hard to reconcile the Minister's attitude and the Minister's references to these officials with what has become the accepted policy of the Government—the preservation of neutrality. I say that these intemperate and indiscreet anti-British outbursts in this House are to be deplored, more especially when they come from people in the responsible position which the Minister occupies. Apart from that I should like to point to a very grave inconsistency, so far as the Minister's Department is concerned, with regard to persons of British nationality. In the earlier stages of this Bill, the Minister made a comparison between a section of this Bill and a section of the Insurance Act which was designed to force a number of small insurance companies to amalgamate. When these insurance companies were compulsorily amalgamated, the political head of the Department of Industry and Commerce placed an Englishman in charge of the amalgamation. I mention that not because I have any antagonism or any objection to the person appointed but to show the grave inconsistency in the Minister speaking in the manner in which he did to-day.
There is one further point to which I should like to make reference—that is the Minister's attitude to the coming over here of certain English trade union officials. I should like to ask the Minister what fault he has to find with that method of negotiation. I recommend the Minister to tell some of his pals on the Executive Council that when they have, in future, business to negotiate on behalf of the country, it would be well for them to take a leaf out of the book of these gentlemen and go across to England or induce English Ministers to come over here rather than deal with matters of vital importance to this country by telegram or by telephonic communication with third or fifth-class civil servants.
I should like, first of all, to say how deeply I deplore the attitude which the Minister took up on this section and especially the language he used in regard to Deputy Norton. I may say that I have had an open mind on this Bill all through, because I am one of those who believe, and always believed, that there should be a certain amount of regulation in regard to the work of trade unions. The Minister, in my opinion, went out of his way to insult a very considerable section of the honest workers of this country. I can state in answer to the Minister, and I would go out on any public platform and state it, that the workers of this country owe a lot to the workers of Great Britain in regard to the privileges they now enjoy. It is 45 years ago since I joined the British trade union and I know the conditions under which the men associated with me then worked previous to the coming over of these men from England. I resent the remarks of the Minister because of my knowledge of and my personal contact with those men.
The Minister need not attempt to drag in the red herring of Irish unions for Irishmen. I can say that there is a certain section of Irishmen who got up unions for their own selfish interests rather than the interests of the men whom they are supposed to represent. I could repeat that at every crossroads and I would be applauded by the vast majority of Irish workers. The Minister need not drag that red herring across the trail and don the mantle of the mad, roaring republican when talking to some Deputies who may go down to the crossroads and say the same thing, while at Rathmines he waves the red, white and blue flag. That game will not work. As a worker who always earned honest money, although I occupy the position now of a T.D., I will not turn my back on the men with whom I worked years ago and whose hardships I shared. I would be anything but a manly man if I were to remain silent and not put a question to the Minister with regard to the implications of this Section 21.
I belong to a trade union connected with the building trade since I was 14 years of age. The members of that union are respectable, hardworking men, although few in number. They have carried on for the past half century, paying their subscriptions each week and building up a fund which enabled them to pay sickness benefit at the rate of 15/- a week when the benefit being paid by other societies was only 10/-. They were amalgamated with the Manchester Order of Bricklayers which has since been amalgamated with what is known as the London Order of Bricklayers. I want to know from the Minister what would be the position of those men under this section. We want no quibbling in the matter. Although I have kept silent during the discussion of this Bill, I can be a very awkward man as regards the peace of this country in other circumstances. I can be very awkward and can command a lot more influence than Deputy Meaney, or half a dozen others like him, amongst the workingmen. I always, however, consider the national interest above my own personal interest.
I want to know from the Minister what would be the position of that society if and when this Bill comes into operation and when they come to discuss conditions of employment and hours of work with their employers. What chance have they of being recognised by this tribunal? What chance has the carpenters' society of being recognised? The carpenters are also a body of decent men, although few in number, and so are all the other trades which are ancillary to the building trade. A red herring should not be dragged in now about Irish unions and unions being manned by Irishmen. That can be discussed in the future, and when that comes up you will find that possibly we will be just as much in favour of that as others. But we want the thing done in a proper way, and it has got to be done in a proper way. It will not be done by means of this Section 21.
I cannot understand why the Minister could not have come to an agreement with the leaders of the tradeunions in regard to this Bill. It would be only commonsense for both parties to come together and have an agreed Bill. This Bill will impose a great deal of hardship on the people to whom I have referred, especially Section 21. These people carried on their union long before we had any of this talk about Irish unions for Irishmen and all this waving of flags. Deputy Meaney and other Deputies know absolutely nothing about tradeunions; 70 per cent. of the Fianna Fáil Party know nothing about them. A great many of them never knew what it was to earn a decent week's wages, and would not know how to earn them.
We are as decent as the Deputy.
You never left the place you were born in; you would not have the courage. You will get plenty of it if it comes to that.
The Deputy might address the Chair.
I do not know anything about Mr. Marchbank or any other of the men who came across here and voted at the Trade Union Congress or what happened about the dispute in Cork. If the truth were known, I suppose a few clever fellows who were no good at their trade formed an Irish union, thereby hoping to get work. I suppose that was the reason the Irish union was formed. I know too much about these unions for the last 40 years. Some people who could not earn a living started Irish unions. I want to know what will happen under Section 21 to the union to which I have the honour to belong? That union is composed of respectable men who worked hard and earned their money hard and who want to carry on in the same way that they have carried on for 40 years. They have not gone out of their way to impede the industrial progress of this country. No matter what Deputy Maguire, Deputy Childers, or any of those new industrialists who have cropped up in this country during the last few years may say, these men went through the mill. They will not be dictated to by Deputy Maguire, Deputy Childers, or any other Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches. We are Irish, first, last and all the time.
Again, I want to ask the Minister to tell me in plain language what is the meaning of,
"that the tribunal may, if it thinks proper, require such trade union to satisfy the tribunal that the grant of such determination will not affect adversely any rights or claims to benefits enjoyed for the time being by any of such workmen as members of a trade union".
Again, take the little union to which I belong. Let us assume for the purpose of argument—and there need be no assumption about it because it is a fact—that the members of this union all through the years—if they are not alive to-day at least their sons are—have built up a fund, be it large or small. The purpose of that fund, as I say, was to pay them sickness benefit, mortality benefit and also superannuation benefit when they had passed their years of labour. These funds to-day are across on the far side. If a class to which these men do not belong comes to be recognised by the tribunal as the class entitled to organise and speak for these men, is the Minister going to tell me that the funds of these men are sufficiently safeguarded by this clause that "the tribunal may if it thinks proper"? Does the Minister remember all the confusion that that word "may" created in the country in the case of the Dance Halls Act? It is the duty of members of this House to ensure that any words that appear in any section of this Bill will have a definite meaning, that they will not be such that any member of the tribunal or any judge can use his own discretion in interpreting them. No such discretion should be allowed under a Bill of this kind.
There should be no ambiguity in any provision of this Act. I maintain that there is a danger that the word "may" will not be properly interpreted by members of the tribunal, and it is for the Minister to see that in a matter in which the safeguarding of the interests of any section of workers, large or small, in this country is concerned, they should not be allowed any discretion. These workers are as much entitled to have their rights preserved as the members of the largest union in the country. I invite the Minister to explain what exactly is intended to be conveyed by the word "may" as it appears in this section in reference to the tribunal.
I regret that the Minister made use of certain remarks in answer to Deputy Norton. He made reference to what transpired at the Trade Union Congress. Let me tell the Minister that 80 per cent. of the workers of this country may not take much interest in the doings of the Trade Union Congress, but as a result of his references to the men who came across, I can tell him that the young trade unionists of this country will see that their rights are not filched away from them as easily as the Minister imagines. In fact, this section is going to give new life to the trade union movement in this country. That is a thing I regret in one way for this reason. Some years ago the trade union movement, by allowing itself to be involved in internecine strikes, did much damage in the country, but in the last four or five years there has been a great improvement. That is why I regret the Minister has seen fit to open up old sores, and to introduce the question of a man's nationality. As I have already said, those men from across the water are welcome here. What would be the position in this country were it not for the fact that Irish workers can go across in their thousands to Great Britain and get work there? The Minister makes a great deal of capital out of the fact that an Irish carpenter could not get work in Cork. I can tell him as one who has had experience of the matter that the same thing holds good in any town or village in Ireland. If you had the hardihood to go from Dundalk to Drogheda to look for work, say, as a carpenter, you would be looked upon as an Indian with horns. There is nothing remarkable about that.
Talk about the Border and Partition, we have partition in every town and village in the country. The Minister need not be so astonished at the fact that an Irish carpenter could not get work in Cork. One would have a much better chance of getting a job in London in work of that kind than in the City of Dublin. That is why I regret that the Minister should have spoken as he did this evening, because his remarks were calculated to interrupt the very friendly relations that have existed between the workers of this country and the workers of Great Britain. I challenge any member of the Fianna Fáil Party to go down the country and ask any Irish worker who has travelled—he is the only one who has any experience—for his opinion of the British trade unionist. He will tell you that the British trade unionist is the finest man he has ever worked for or worked with. That is why I deprecate these remarks about men who came across here from England. They are only doing their duty and they are welcome here at any time. Their coming does not prevent us from minding our business here in Ireland.
I am anxious to know the position of those sections, large or small, which have existed in this country for the last 50 years before the Minister—I do not say this with any intention of making little of him—knew what trade unionism was or knew the conditions under which Irish workers had to work during these years. I can conscientiously say that this section is going to have a serious effect on the smaller unions of the country. I think that it will be a bad day for this country when it is put into operation. I always understood that it was the policy of the Government to develop a spirit of self-reliance amongst our workers. Even the former Minister for Industry and Commerce always maintained that it would be a bad thing to concentrate all the new factories in the larger areas. He thought it advisable to decentralise industries. The provisions of this section would indicate that the Government are going back on that policy and that is definitely a retrograde step.
This would appear to be the important section in the Bill so far as the trade unions are concerned. As the section stands amended, when a trade union applies to be registered as a negotiating body and the only negotiating body under the tribunal, the tribunal can grant such determination, refuse it, or if satisfied that there are reasonable grounds in the public interest for so doing, decide that two or more trade unions should be so entitled to negotiate and be registered.
I cannot find, so far as my examination of this or even the succeeding section goes, what opportunity is afforded of getting a decision, once it is given, reversed. There was a subsection which gave permission to have this matter re-considered at the end of 12 months, but that has been amended and it appears from subsequent sections of the Bill that, so long as a decision that has been given cannot be revoked, only those trade unions which get a negotiation licence can negotiate. The subsequent sections have a reference to a revocation, but there is no mention here that a re-hearing can take place.
While what the Minister said last night may have been interesting, it did not appear to me to have any relevancy so far as this section is concerned. There was a dispute between two trade unions and, unless the information we have is entirely at fault, it is more than likely these two unions will be registered as negotiating bodies. From any knowledge I had of the situation up to three years ago, it is more than likely that the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, rather than woodworkers—I am not sure if it has changed——
It has changed.
That was the description at that time. I suppose the Minister is aware that at times when employment is not plentiful, when, in fact, there is considerable unemployment amongst carpenters here, it is the practice to go across the water and to get into employment there. To that extent, membership of that union was to their advantage. It is unlikely, from what one can see of the future, that that situation will continue. In such circumstances, operatives connected with that trade union will have to consider whether they will join one society or another. I presume they will not be allowed to work in England unless they are members of the English organisation. Unless they are members of one organisation here and two over there, it is obvious, so far as we can judge, that those bodies would have to be registered here. Therefore, this Bill does not solve the problem which the Minister mentioned last night was agitating his Department.
Everybody is anxious to see these disturbances, which take place between conflicting interests in trade unions, settled. But it is one thing to express a desire or to have a good intention to settle a thing, and it is quite another to perform that operation. It is by no means an easy operation. I suggest it is not good policy to antagonise those who, according to the statements read last night, are as much interested in composing their differences as is the Minister. Trade unionists have the right to vote in those matters. It is inconceivable to me that there could have been at that Congress 5,000 or 6,000 Englishmen, or non-Irishmen, voting. The issues must have been determined by Irishmen.
The vote was a card vote.
I think the fact is that they were nearly all Irishmen who voted. I was one of those who, for a long time, hoped we would have only Irish trade unions here. I do not think that under modern circumstances it is such a practical proposition. So long as members of the building trades have to go to England to get employment, I do not know how that would be possible. There was this consideration, which was always regarded as a problem, that when men are members of a trade union for something like 30 years they have a considerable stake in that particular union, and anything affecting it considerably affects them. It could not be regarded as an easily settled matter to persuade them that they can have the same standing in a new trade union which may not be so well off in the matter of funds and which must wait for a long time until it builds up the same position as the union they will have to leave.
Everybody admits there is a problem, and we all must regret that there is one there to be solved. I suggest that you cannot solve it by importing heat into this controversy, particularly when there is a general disposition amicably to solve the matter. One thing that struck me as peculiar in connection with this measure is that whatever effect it is going to have, it is obvious the intention is that certain trade unions would be so deprived of their power in the future that they can no longer be expected to function as trade unions. When we are dealing with a matter of that sort in connection with local authorities, we always make provision for pensioning off officials who may be affected. It is not regarded as a concession but as a mere matter of justice. This measure has no such provision.
Is it not quite clear that men are entitled to consider how their own interests are likely to be affected in the future? Let us assume that the Bill is going to work perfectly. Is it not clear that something like 100, and possibly 200, persons employed by the trade unions that are going to go out of active participation in trade union matters will be thrown on the scrapheap? If a man has been employed by a trade union for five, ten, or 15 years, it is obvious that man will not feel at home in taking up new work, no matter what the occupation is.
Supposing that in his earlier days he was a printer, will he go back to printing after an absence of 15 years? If he was a carpenter before he became an agent of a trade union, is it likely that he will go back to carpentry quite easily? I think it is almost an impossibility. There is a very serious flaw in the construction of this measure, in that there is no provision for that aspect. It is clear that the very construction of this measure would almost drive persons who have conflicting interests into opposition. The obvious thing to do, of course, is to stand together—better to hang together than to hang separately. I suggest the Minister ought to reconsider this section. It might be possible for him to suggest some other means. There is no provision for a revocation of a determination, and I do not think that was the intention. It certainly does not appear to be from the later sections. Provision ought to be made for those persons whose livelihood is going to be interrupted. We ought to concern ourselves as much with seeing that their interests are going to be safe for the future as in finding a solution for the problem that exists.
A man who is a member of a trade union for ten or 15 years—a union that may not be as strong as other unions, a union whose members have been doing everything to keep it alive, by supporting it in every way, and persuading other people to join it—is suddenly confronted with a situation in which the old antagonisms are likely to be revived. Let us take it that the trade union is going to be absorbed by another union. Is it likely that the mere absorption is going to dispense with the old troubles, the old bitternesses, the old acrimonies? I do not think so. I think the Minister would be well advised to have confidence in the persons concerned, and see if it is not possible to get a more agreeable method of settling this matter than would seem to exist in the Bill.
We have had probably the most classical example of perversity that the House has witnessed from the Minister. The burden of his whole speech was that this Bill was being opposed by English unions but was favoured by Irish unions. If that statement is intended as a serious one, then the Minister does not know what he is talking about, and every farthing that he receives from the State is being received under false pretences. He does not know the job he is paid to do, and the sooner the Minister goes back to the Department of Finance, and that his predecessor comes back to the Department of Industry and Commerce, then and no sooner, apparently, will we get someone to take charge of this Department who knows the facts in relation to trade unions. The Taoiseach might well try to find a new Minister who has some experience of trade unionism in this country. The Minister said that the Bill was opposed by English trade unions and that their opposition was designed to harm Irish unions. I addressed a large demonstration in College Green last week at which there were not less than 20,000 people present. They paraded in College Green in a quiet and orderly manner to protest against this Bill. The names of those at the meeting did not include that of Mr. Marchbank. Those who were present live in Dublin. They marched through the streets of Dublin in order to protest against this Bill. They were members of trade unions with headquarters in Ireland and of unions that have headquarters in England. There was no mistaking the tone and the viewpoint of that meeting. If the Minister had dared to attempt to address it he might have got some real picture of the feelings of Irishmen who are organised in trade unions about this Bill.
The opposition to it, the Minister said, has come from English unions. The chairman at the meeting was Mr. Jackson, an Irishman, who happened to be a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers. Other speakers were Mr. Rody Connolly, a son of the late James Connolly; Mr. Charlie Doyle, Secretary of the Plasterers' Union; Miss Bennett, of the Irish Women Workers' Union; Deputy Hickey, of the Transport and General Workers' Union; and Mr. James Larkin. Eliminating Mr. Jackson, who is a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, of which close on 10,000 Irishmen are members, with its headquarters across the Channel, every one of the other speakers was a member of an Irish union and yet the Minister said that the Bill is being opposed by English unions, as he called them, and is favoured by Irish unions. The speakers, with the one exception, at that demonstration, as well as the 20,000 people who were present, were members of Irish unions and they are opposing this Bill because they see in it not merely the early demise of some small Irish unions, but a menace to the strength and solidarity which unions in this country had under previous legislation. How the Minister for Industry and Commerce could expect any union with headquarters in Great Britain to have any confidence in or to waste time on such a conception of conciliation, after the attack made on English trade unions last night, passes my comprehension. If I were an official of an English union with headquarters in Britain I would insist in future that business would not be done with the Department of Industry and Commerce, if the present Minister has anything to do with it. He gave utterance to-day to the most absurd condemnation of unions with headquarters in Britain and, at the same time, indulged in pretty low-class abuse by innuendo of the officials of these organisations. If any of the unions have in future to go to the Department of Industry and Commerce after what the Minister said last night and to-day, they are simpler folk than I imagine them to be.
One would think it was a frightful crime to be a member of a union with headquarters in Britain. I do not think it is. My viewpoint is that I want to see Irish workers organised in Irish unions. I want to try to see the centre of gravity of Irish unions in Dublin. I want to build up strong trade unions with the national nervecentre in Dublin, but in the memorandum which I prepared for the Trade Union Commission my ambition was based on the belief that that cannot be done in any hurried way; it cannot be done by the bull-in-the-china-shop tactics. It has to be done prudently and cautiously, and we should choose the speed as well as the road we have to travel. I prefer to see that brought about by encouraging voluntary amalgamation of unions in every possible way, even by getting State assistance for some of the smaller unions, to ensure that they will move gradually into the larger unions, and to encourage them to do so by giving them greater powers. If there were successful amalgamations we could then say to those who have to choose: "Look at what has been achieved from amalgamation". Why cannot that scheme be applied in respect to other amalgamations? I realise that it will not be done under this Bill.
This Bill has created more opposition inside and outside this House than any other piece of legislation that was introduced here. It is reversing the whole process of encouraging amalgamations. Section 21 is going to encourage poaching and competing for members by setting one union against another, if they take any notice of it with a view to implementing its provisions. I want to see Irish unions established with headquarters and the centre of gravity in Ireland. I realise that you cannot pursue that policy with the alacrity and the imprudence manifested in the Bill. Membership of an English trade union is not dishonourable to any Irishman. Many people whose bones whiten our cemeteries because of their national efforts died with membership cards of trade unions in their pockets. These cards were printed in Britain. Many of the people who stood in the G.P.O. in 1916 had cards of membership of unions with headquarters in Britain. I do not want to mention names, but Deputy Byrne reminds me that Dick O'Carroll and Bill Partridge were members of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, which was subjected to such a disgraceful attack by the Minister. That did not prevent them sacrificing their lives for this country. Many people who cheered for the Republic, and who are still deluded into the belief that the Minister's Party went out to achieve it, had membership cards of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers.
I had a curious experience on one occasion some years ago, trying to persuade a person not to engage in certain activities which he thought it was perfectly national to engage in. I found that although he had a terrific grievance against Bass being sold in this country, he had no grievance against having a membership card of a cross-Channel organisation in his pocket. The Minister betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the trade union movement when he talks in that way. As Deputy Coburn rightly said, many workers in this country have good reason to thank organisations with headquarters across Channel for the assistance which they rendered to Irish workers. If we go back to the big strike of 1913, when sea-green incorruptible Irish capitalists were driving workers out on the streets hoping by the weapon of hunger to force them to accept low wages, it was British trade unions that organised the food ships that sailed up the Liffey to relieve the sufferings imposed on Irish workers by the same sea-green incorruptible capitalists of Irish nationality who are the darlings of the Minister under this Bill.
The Minister pretends to believe—it is a false pretence—that this Bill has the approval of Irish workers. I make an offer to the Minister. I made it before. Will the Minister drop this Bill if he gets a majority vote against it of Irish trade unionists—and he can conduct the ballot himself? Will the Minister drop this Bill if he gets a majority vote against it of the delegates at the forthcoming Trade Union Congress? Will the Minister drop the Bill if he gets a majority vote against it at the forthcoming Trade Union Congress, if the only delegates voting are those who can produce certificates that they were born in Ireland? Will the Minister take any one of these three challenges? I dare him to do it because he knows, no matter what happens in the matter, there will be a majority vote against this, whether they are members of English unions or members of Irish unions or both voting together. The Minister was silent when that offer was made before. Will he answer now? If he will not, why? The Minister knows perfectly well that he cannot get a majority of Irish trade unionists to accept this Bill.
The new type of national sin that it is possible to commit in this country is to come here from England. That, apparently, is sabotage against this country and treachery to Britain. When I think of the movement of Mr. Marchbanks from Britain to here, I wish there were as few Murphys going from here to Britain as there are Marchbanks coming from Britain to here. If the Minister were to go down to Amiens Street or go up and stand at Belfast railway station or go out to the quaysides and see the numbers of Irish workers who are glad to go to Britain to get employment there, he might not indulge in such hostility towards representatives of organisations with headquarters in Britain as he indulged in this evening. If the Minister, who is responsible for dealing with unemployment, would deal with it instead of mishandling it as he is mishandling it, there would be less necessity, probably, for anybody to come from England to attend a trade union conference in this country. One would think that Mr. Marchbanks' visit to the special Trade Union Congress which was held in connection with the report of the Trade Union Commission was the first occasion upon which he had visited this country. Mr. Marchbanks is a very frequent visitor to trade union congresses held in this country. He comes over as the secretary to the National Union of Railwaymen. As a matter of fact if the Minister for Industry and Commerce knew anything about the activities of that organisation, I think he would find that Mr. Marchbanks is here once every month and has been coming here for years. To hear the Minister talk one would think this was the first occasion on which he had been in Ireland and that he had come over with some deep-seated plot to smash the Irish trade unionists. I have known Mr. Marchbanks to be coming and going for the past 20 years or more. Everybody in the trade union movement knows that. One simpleton in that respect is the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He knows nothing about Mr. Marchbanks or about the trade union movement at all. But the Minister gave the impression that the vote on Memorandum II was a vote by a show of hands and that, consequently, Mr. Marchbanks was able to vote on the resolution. As a delegate, Mr. Marchbanks was quite entitled to move any motion. Any other delegate was entitled to second it and other delegates were entitled to speak, but in the vote on the resolution Mr. Marchbanks or any other representative living in England did not participate because the vote on Memorandum II was a card vote based on the members of the union who were actually resident in Ireland.
Cast by Mr. Marchbanks in the name of all——
Do not wriggle again.
Cast by Mr. Marchbanks in the name of all the members.
The Minister sought to mislead the House, and told the House that it was Mr. Marchbanks' vote and his hand that helped to defeat Memorandum I.
It certainly was.
The vote at the conference was by a card vote, and in a card vote the votes cast are those of persons living in Ireland and on that account affiliated to the Trade Union Congress.
In a card vote, as the Deputy well knows, the card carries all the membership of the organisation irrespective of what the individual views of those members may be. The Deputy knows that well.
Was it not his Irish council that advised him how to vote?
We will deal with that in one second.
The Minister does not know it; we know he does not.
If an organisation has 1,000 members affiliated to, let us say, the Trade Union Congress, and if a vote is taken on the basis of a card vote, then the 1,000 affiliated members of that organisation vote in that card vote. Let us take the case of an organisation, say, like the N.U.R., which may have, say, 250,000 members but, say, 10,000 members in Ireland. It would only affiliate to the Irish Congress its 10,000 Irish members, not its 250,000 Irish and English members. When a vote would be taken at the Trade Union Congress as a card vote, the 10,000 Irish members would vote—only those. They would vote through their delegates, who were present, and their delegates would get instructions what way to vote from the Irish council of that organisation. That is what happens in the case of the N.U.R., and that is what happens in Mr. Marchbanks' case.
One Mr. Marchbanks casting the votes of 10,000 Irish members.
That is perfectly true. But write a letter to the papers tomorrow and say that. Write another letter to the papers and see if you will get a denial of it and see if the denial will be from the Irish Council of the National Union of Railwaymen, composed solely of Irishmen.
Get Deputy Meaney to write it.
The denial would be censored. It would not be allowed to appear.
It is statements of this kind that amaze everybody that a Minister with so little experience of the trade union movement should so unhappily be selected to pilot a Bill of this kind through the House. The Minister is insured against any intelligent thought on trade union matters. He knows nothing whatever about it. One cannot understand how, even in the short time he has been in the Department, he has been able to keep his mind so completely water-proofed against any knowledge of the trade union movement. We had that story of the Cork carpenter again. The Minister now knows perfectly well that that was a hot potato to pull out in this discussion, but, with all that skill for misrepresentation which is so characteristic of him, the Minister tried again to present the facts to the House in a way that would suit his own end. The facts are incontrovertible. The position is that the carpenter who went to Cork to work and was prevented from working was prevented from working in the first instance by the Cork carpenters themselves who were organised in another union. Their attitude in that matter was backed by the Irish Council of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, and when the Minister then set up his court of inquiry the Irish Council of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers advised their English executive, which is also an Irish executive because there are some Irish members on it, as to the line of policy they wanted to pursue. Consequently, the Minister got the letter he read here.
The Minister ought to know that the initial action in that case was taken by the Cork carpenters themselves, and that the pursuit of it was taken up by Irish carpenters, who are organised in the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers. These facts are well known to everyone who knows anything about the dispute, but the one person apparently who has not been able to absorb them is the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The last point I want to deal with is the Minister's allegation that Memorandum I is an Irish memorandum, and that Memorandum II is an English memorandum. The Minister tries to seek some consolation from an allegation of that kind, an entirely erroneous allegation—that the signatories to Memorandum I are supporting this Bill. I say it is a gross untruth to pretend that they are supporting the Bill.
I have not said so.
The Minister implied it.
I said that the efforts of the signatories to Memorandum I, to secure the reform of the trade union movement, were defeated, and I told by what forces they were defeated.
Reform it in a way that the Minister admits it should not be reformed, because he has said that he would not be prepared to agree to a reformation which involved the creation of ten separate industrial organisations. The Minister is not aware of the facts that have been stated in the House on the Bill. The Bill has been brought in under false pretences. Its introduction has been inspired by ignorance. During the discussions that have taken place, the Minister has shown that he knows nothing whatever about the trade union movement. He has said that the signatories to Memorandum I are supporting this Bill. They are not. They are absolutely opposed to it. At the Trade Union Congress, which will be held in the course of the next fortnight, the signatories to Memorandum I will speak in denunciation of this Bill with the same vigour as it is being condemned in this House. The Minister calls that an Irish memorandum, and pretends to believe that those who signed Memorandum II were signing an English memorandum, and that, therefore, the Irish unions are supporting this Bill. I have quoted for him already the names of the speakers who appeared at the Dublin meeting. I told him too, that the folk who attended that meeting were Irish workers and not parachute troops dropped from Britain for the purpose of the meeting.
I defy the Minister, if he believes that anyone wants this Bill, to go down to College Green and hold a meeting there, or to go up to see the old ladies in Rathmines and have a meeting with them and tell them about the necessity for introducing it. Let the Minister, at any rate, go out and talk to Irish workers about the Bill and tell them about the merits of it. I will appear on any platform in this country with the Minister, whether it be in Rathmines or Ringsend. He can take all the time he wants to talk about the Bill. I will be satisfied with half that time in denouncing the Bill, and then let us take a vote of the audience and see if they want the Bill. Will the Minister try that as a means of testing whether this Bill is wanted or not? Will the Minister take the other offer which has been made—to decide the matter on the basis of the votes of Irish trade unionists collectively expressed, or expressed by delegates on their behalf,' at Drogheda this month? The Minister dare not do that because he knows this Bill is unwanted. Notwithstanding the fact that a whole Party does not want the Bill, it is being dragooned into supporting it. The avowed object of the Bill is to weaken the trade union movement and to wipe out the small Irish unions while the Minister indulges in mock heroics that the English unions are opposed to it.
The Minister last night and to-day made a good deal of play about the association of members, or officials, of amalgamated unions with the opposition to this measure. He referred in particular by name—I think it was rather unfortunate that he did so—to Mr. Jackson, an Irishman, and to Mr. Marchbanks, an Englishman. Mr. Jackson presided at the Dublin demonstration because he is the honoured president, elected unanimously, of the Dublin Trades Union Council. It was in that capacity that he presided and spoke at that demonstration. Is the Minister aware that a number of unions—the big unions, the amalgamated unions—are not affiliated to the Dublin Trades Union Council at all, and that Mr. Jackson holds his position as President of that council by virtue of the votes of the delegates? The majority of the unions affiliated to that council are Irish unions. They consist mainly of the small unions. I have been a member of an amalgamated union for over 34 years. The Minister referred to me last night as being a member of an amalgamated union with which I have no association whatever. That shows his ignorance on matters of this kind or the bad secret service that he has at his disposal. If I was a member of the amalgamated union that he referred to I would not be in the least ashamed to admit it.
I was very closely associated with the leaders of that particular union long before this House was established, going back, in fact, to the anticonscription days of 1918. I was also associated with other activities of the trade union movement during the fight for the national independence of this country. Deputy Norton rightly said that some of the bravest men who ever fought for the independence of this country held membership cards in amalgamated unions. If the Minister was not in Dublin at the time I can tell him that the leaders in the trade union movement at the time the British attempted to impose conscription on this country were the leaders of the amalgamated unions. With the selected representative of the National Union of Railwaymen and ten other persons, I signed the manifesto on behalf of the trade union movement calling for the one-day strike against conscription. I challenge the Minister to get any member of the Railwaymen's Union in this country to say that one word of disapproval was ever uttered against that decision by the British leaders of those unions during that period. In company with two or three individuals who were the selected leaders of the trade union movement in this country and of the National Union of Railwaymen, I also signed the manifesto calling for the hunger strike in Mountjoy. If the Minister knew anything about the power of the trade union movement at that particular period he would realise that it would not be very great if it were not for the association of the members of the amalgamated unions. The amalgamated unions that I have been closely associated with did not utter one word against any act taken by their Irish members in the fight for national independence. Does the Minister remember the action that was taken by the Irish railwaymen when they refused to carry the "Black and Tans" on the trains or munitions to assist them to do their dirty work in this country? Does he know if any word of disapproval was ever uttered by the British trade union leaders against the action of their Irish members in connection with any of those matters? Certainly not, and for one very good reason, which is this, that the attitude of Irish railwaymen who are members of the amalgamated unions has also been decided by their Irish councils without any interference of any kind from anybody across the Channel.
There are members sitting here who, I am sure, know them, but the Minister tries to give the impression to those listening to him here and to people outside who may read what he says, that a member of an amalgamated union should be despised, and to give the impression in speeches he has delivered outside—some of them in my constituency—that those of us who are members of amalgamated unions are at the beck and call of British trade union officials. He mentioned Mr. Marchbanks by name on several occasions. I have had the pleasure of the friendship of Mr. Marchbanks for about 25 years. I knew him when he was a working railwayman, before he became a trade union official, and I wonder if the Minister, if he has any time at his disposal during the week-end or in the immediate future, will read the leading article over the name of Mr. Marchbanks, in which he told the British Government what he thought of their recent proposal to impose conscription on the citizens of the Six Counties. He wrote a remarkable article during the week-end when Mr. Churchill proposed to bring this conscription scheme into operation. The Minister ought to know perfectly well, if he knows what goes on inside his Cabinet, that it was men like Mr. Marchbanks—I will not mention any others by name, but the Minister must know them, if he knows what goes on in the inner circle of his Government—who used considerable influence, and effectively, to prevent Mr. Churchill and the people associated with him from going ahead with the proposal to impose conscription upon his own fellow-citizens in the Six Counties.
We hear a lot about British trade union officials and the so-called power of these officials over their Irish members in connection with trade union policy. We never hear a word, except in praise, from the Minister about people who are not Irish nationals who hold the chief executive positions in the industries in which these railwaymen and other people work. We never hear a word of condemnation in this House in respect of the British managers of Irish railways, Irish shipping companies, or Irish insurance companies. I do not want to go into that very deeply, but the chief executive officers of railway companies, shipping companies, insurance companies and other big companies operating in this country have as much influence, if they have not greater influence, over the lives of their workers than any British trade union official may have over the organisations to which these workers belong.
I have been associated with a few railway strikes in this country, and, every time the railwaymen went on strike, the loudest voices one heard against them came from the employers' side, from employers and representatives of employers, people who represent the chamber of commerce point of view, and who used the newspapers to point out that these strikes were fomented by cross-Channel trade union leaders. The same employers, of course, have probably a majority of British-born officials inside their chambers of commerce, and it was probably the point of view of the British members of the Irish Chamber of Commerce that decided the policy of our employers here. They never said anything about that, and they would not dream of pointing these things out, but they used the newspapers, in which they were financially interested, to advertise the so-called fact that it was British trade union officials who fomented or encouraged strikes which took place on Irish railways and in other Irish industries.
I was very glad to hear the Minister say last night that, although he would not attend a meeting in his own constituency for the purpose of explaining this Bill and justifying it as a measure which should be passed through the House during a period of emergency, he is prepared to visit my constituency at some early and convenient date. I welcome the Minister's offer to visit my constituency, although, at the same time, he refuses to meet his own constituents for this purpose, but I hope that when he goes down to my constituency, he will not devote most of his speech to personal abuse of myself or anybody else associated with the trade union movement. He set up a record for himself in that respect in the last general election, by devoting the greater portion of his time to pouring personal abuse and slander upon myself and my colleague who were Labour candidates in that election.
That scarcely arises on this section.
If he decides to visit my constituency, I hope he will take the opportunity to go into the areas where there is a strong organisation amongst the workers in the principal towns, and perhaps when he is thinking over the most suitable places in which to deliver whatever eloquent oration he may decide to deliver there, he will decide to speak to the 500 or 600 workers in Clonsast bog, and will explain to them the real meaning of the measure, and the association with it of Emergency Powers Order No. 83. He will find 500 or 600 organised workers there, amongst whom would be many supporters of Fianna Fáil in the last election, who will be deeply interested in hearing what are the good reasons for the rushing through of this measure during a period of emergency.
I deplore more than I wish to say the type of speech delivered by the Minister last night, for this reason, that if the chairman of the tribunal is going to be a person with the same mentality in relation to the administration of the Bill, there is going to be more trouble than I ever anticipated from whatever decisions he may give in connection with it. The chairman of that tribunal, I suppose, would be bound to take into consideration in connection with any applications that may come before him, the viewpoint of the Minister and the attitude of the House, and I dare say that the judges of whatever court may be appointed as a court of appeal would be called upon to do likewise. I pity the chairman of the tribunal who may have to follow the line laid down by the Minister in his speech last night, and it will be a sad day when any of our judges of the High Court or Supreme Court have to take as their line in deciding cases which come before them on appeal the line given by the Minister last night, which no doubt will be approved of by the votes of the majority of the House, consisting of members who do not listen to the discussion and who will probably never take the trouble to read the Minister's speech.
I wonder is it possible for the Minister, even at this stage, to mend his ways? I have discussed with Irish trade union leaders on more than one occasion the advisability of Irishmen —and particularly of Irish railwaymen —being members of an Irish union, but I am not going to stand up on any Labour platform and encourage them to cut the painter without considering the personal loss involved to them and their dependants by deciding to do so. I want to see Irishmen who are members of amalgamated unions go over to an Irish union, if they decide to do so, in an orderly way. I am sure that would be the wish of the Minister, if he would give the House the benefit of his personal view on the matter.
I have had sad experience, even in recent years, of Irish railwaymen leaving the union with which they had been associated for a long number of years and going over to an Irish union, and leaving some of their dependants, in certain cases at any rate, in misery as a result of a decision taken on the spur of the moment on the advice of politicians who used them for purely political purposes. I knew a certain railwayman—he worked in close association with me on the suburban railway section in Dublin— who died. He had 28 years' membership in an amalgamated union, but some months before he passed away he decided to join another organisation which had been established to cater for the needs of Irish railway workers.
He was not in benefit in the new union—his dependants were not entitled to get any benefit when he died. If he had maintained his membership in the amalgamated union his widow would have received, as far as I know, £28 death benefit, and his widow and children would have been entitled to pensions. By his hasty decision in leaving one union and going over to another, without inviting the other union to carry his liabilities, he left his widow and dependants in want. The hat was sent around for a subscription, and the subscription which was made up by his colleagues was far short of the amount his widow would have received as death benefit if he had maintained his membership of the amalgamated union. Those are matters which we must consider before we take hasty decisions. Every member of an amalgamated union has fairly good insurance benefits, and has paid dearly for them. I hold the view, and have expressed it to some of the leaders of the amalgamated union, that if, for instance, Irish railwaymen decided by majority to go over to an Irish union they should do it in an orderly way, and their representatives should go to the leaders of the British union and say: "We have decided by majority to establish an Irish union. We want to have that union established on a sound financial basis, sufficiently strong to meet and deal with any emergency that may arise here. In consideration of the long membership of the number of people who are involved, we want from you, in consideration for taking certain liabilities from you a certain sum, so that that sum can be the nucleus for a sound union to be started here in this country, a union sufficiently sound and strong to meet and deal with any emergency that may arise." I know that politicians have used some of the members of amalgamated unions, and apparently convinced them that they could not be good Irishmen and at the same time be associated with what is known as an amalgamated union.
I do not know whether the Minister takes any of those things into consideration when he thinks about the consequences of this measure, and of the unions which will go out of existence as a result of the coming into operation of this measure. Apply the same argument to small unions here in this country which will go out of existence because they will not be able to comply with the terms of this Bill, if they recognise it, when it becomes law.
Some of our very small unions here have benefit funds, and on the death of a member his dependants are entitled to certain benefits. There is no obligation whatever upon any unions which will remain in existence after this measure becomes law to take over the liabilities of the members of the small unions which will disappear as a result of the Minister's action in bringing this measure into operation. He has not given any consideration whatever, as far as I can see, to the future rights of the members who have existing rights either in Irish unions or in amalgamated unions. I believe that the right way to give expression to what is in the Minister's mind—and I may share his views to some extent on some matters—is to set up some body under the chairmanship of the Minister or some high official appointed by him, after this stage of the Bill goes through by a machined majority, to try to get an agreed absorption of unions on the lines that the Minister may be thinking of in this measure. I have admitted here, and I will admit it anywhere else, that there is plenty of room for tightening up in the trade union movement. During my long association with the trade union movement I never subscribed to the view that it is necessary to have four or five or six unions catering for the same group of workers in the same industry. It is bad for the employers, and it is worse for the workers. But those things can only be mended by voluntary means, and will never be mended by the methods which the Minister is endeavouring to adopt through the medium of this Bill, and particularly through Section 21 of this Bill.
Before you put the question, Sir, there are a few points which have been raised by Deputy Cosgrave to which I think some attention should be given. First of all, he indicated that, in the section as it stands, there is no provision for the revocation of a determination once it had been made. Well, that is covered by amendment No. 68, which proposes to insert a new section before Section 23. He also pointed out that, in the section as amended, there is no indication as to how long a determination may stand unchallenged. That is dealt with in amendment No. 67, which states that where a determination is granted under this part of this Act that two or more trade unions alone shall have the right to organise masters or workmen of any particular class, no application shall subsequently be made by any of such trade unions to the tribunal in relation to masters or workemen of that class until at least 12 months after the grant of the first determination. There is a further sub-section in that amendment, which provides that where a determination is granted that one trade union alone or two or more trade unions alone shall have the right to organise masters or workmen of any particular class, no application shall subsequently be made to the tribunal by any other trade union in relation to masters or workmen of that class until at least five years after the grant of the first determination.
I suppose we will discuss the merits of those amendments when they are before the House, but I just wish to point out, in reply to what Deputy Cosgrave has said, that we are making provisions of the kind which he felt would be necessary in relation to Sections 20 and 21. The Deputy also pointed out the position in which officials of trade unions might find themselves in a case where the tribunal granted the sole right to organise, and in effect, therefore, might compel amalgamation or the withdrawal of a particular union from a particular field of activity. In my view, that is a matter which could, with reasonable safety, be left to the good sense and the sense of fair play of the trade unions themselves. However, it is a matter which requires consideration. I will look into it, and may, if I think it desirable, bring in an amendment on the Report Stage to deal with it, but I think the House will see that it would present a very difficult problem at this stage, bearing in mind that the tribunal is not to be set up until six months after the date on which Part II of the Act comes into operation.
With regard to the general remarks made by Deputy Davin on this section, with all the sound and fury under which Deputy Davin sometimes conceals his good sense, I should like to say this: it is clear from Part I of the Act that trade unions will have an opportunity to put their house in order before Part II of the Act comes into operation—particularly Section 6 of Part II of the Act. We are not trying to fit the trade union movement here into a cast-iron mould. What we are doing is this: we are compelling the trade union movement as a whole seriously to consider this question of amalgamation and reorganisation.
"Compelling" is a very unwise word to use, and the Minister has used it several times.
That is what the Bill means.
It is honest, anyway.
Having given the movement ample time to do it, and it having failed to do it, something must be done in the general public interest. We are charged with the general public interest, and I am not satisfied that, unless this measure goes through, the trade union movement will tackle this question seriously. When the Bill becomes law, they will then have to consider it in quite different circumstances. I am bound under the Bill to give them at least six months. I do not intend to be hasty in relation to that matter. I am prepared to give them a reasonable time longer, if it should be necessary, but I will not give any time longer than, in my view, is reasonable to enable them to carry out the re-forming and re-organisation which everybody, including even those who have spoken against me on this section of the Bill, agrees is necessary, because we cannot go on putting this matter on the long finger indefinitely. Between the date upon which the Bill becomes law, as I have said, and the date upon which Part II of the Act comes into operation, there will be ample time for the trade union movement, as a whole, to consider the position. As I have said, I am not endeavouring to put any trade union in a cast-iron mould or shape, but I am putting them in the position that, within the limiting factor that consideration must be given to this matter, the trade unions will have to make with each other the arrangements which they think will best suit their own circumstances to enable them to carry on in future.
Question:—"That Section 21, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 53; Níl, 30.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Brennan, Martin.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Keane, John J.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamon
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lynch, James B.
- McCann, John.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Moran, Michael.
- Morrissey Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Bennett, Georgé C.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Davin, William.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hannigan, Joseph.
- Hickey, James.
- Hurley, Jeremiah.
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Nally, Martin.
- Norton, William.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Smith and Kennedy: Níl: Deputies Keyes and Hickey.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 22.
In connection with Section 22, Sir, you have already ruled, I think, that the amendments I intend to propose—amendments Nos. 62a and 63a—will not be taken to-day?
No. They must be deferred to the Report Stage.
Accordingly, Sir, I want to give notice that I am putting down the first amendment, with modifications, to cover the functions of the tribunal in relation to trade unions of masters also.
I understand the Minister has suggested that all those amendments dealing with the functions of the trade union are to be deferred to the Report Stage.
The Minister has stated that he is deferring to the Report Stage the amendments which were submitted in typescript to-day.
Are we going on with the amendments on the Order Paper?
Yes.
The Minister has also indicated that this is a half-baked amendment which will be further amended.
It may not be precise and we may incorporate in it a provision which would cover as well the functions of the tribunal under Section 20.
It would be incorporated under the functions of the tribunal? If we are to have major amendments put before us on the Report Stage, I think we should have to consider having the Bill recommitted.
That will arise when Report Stage is reached.
Amendments Nos. 63 to 66, inclusive, not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 22 stand part of the Bill."
This is the only section which appears to deal with the taking of ballots. I notice from Section 22 (1) that while the ballot may take place in connection with a trade union of workmen on any application made to the tribunal under Section 21, there is no provision in the section in respect of ballots of employers. Would the Minister give an explanation for that unusual omission? So far, there has been a pretence at all events of treating both the same. Why is there a provision for a ballot of workmen and none for a ballot of employers? In sub-section (2) there is provision for the taking of a ballot and that the tribunal may require the trade union to carry it out in accordance with the directions of the tribunal and report the result of such ballot to the tribunal; but it does not put on the tribunal any obligation whatever to be guided by the report, to read it, or even to look at it. What is the purpose of having a ballot of this type unless the tribunal must have regard to the result? Sub-section (2) appears to enable a tribunal to compel a trade union to take a costly ballot. Under sub-section (3) the union can be fined an amount not exceeding £50 if it does not carry out the ballot. Yet the tribunal has no obligation placed on it to pay any regard whatever to the result. What is the tribunal intended to do here?
There is, in fact, another and still more serious objection to sub-section (1). As phrased at present, it reads:
Before making a determination under the immediately preceding section, the tribunal may, for the purpose of obtaining the opinion in relation to such determination of the workmen who the tribunal considers are concerned therein, arrange for the holding of such ballot or ballots among such workmen or any class or classes of such workmen as the tribunal considers proper.
Then sub-section (2) says:
Where a ballot under this section is a ballot among members of a particular trade union, the tribunal may require such trade union to carry out such ballot in accordance with the directions of the tribunal and to report the result of such ballot to the tribunal.
It seems, if you think of the way in which that will operate, you may very well get the result that a union—say a railway organisation—may go before the tribunal and say that it is the only body entitled to organise certain classes of railwaymen. The tribunal may be in a difficulty to ascertain whether that union, whose application can only be heard if it claims to represent a majority of the workers of that class, does in fact represent that majority, and that it is the desire either of its members or of the members of an organisation which is opposing the application, to have the matter determined by giving one organisation the monopoly rights of organising the workers concerned. It seems to me that under sub-sections (1) and (2), taken together, a whole lot of people who are not trade unionists at all might be allowed to vote.
Let us suppose there are two unions on the railways, one organisation representing 10,000 members and the other 5,000. The 10,000 body goes to the tribunal and says: "We represent the majority of the class, and ask you to make a determination that we, and only we, should be permitted to represent the workers engaged in the railway service in the groups covered by the terms of our application." The other union—smaller organisation—may oppose a determination in those terms being made. The tribunal is empowered to hold a ballot of the workmen—not a ballot of the members of the union, but a ballot of the workmen. In addition to the two unions mentioned, there may be 5,000 unorganised workmen. It appears to me that the 5,000 unorganised workmen who have not thought it worth while to become members of trade unions at all, can live simply on the benefits made possible by trade union action and, for the purpose of a determination under Section 21, they would have to be consulted by way of ballot. I do not know if it is intended that the unions should endeavour to get a viewpoint from those folk in connection with the ballot of their own members.
Where you are dealing with a bunch of unorganised people, it is highly undesirable that their views should be taken into consideration in determining which union they should be members of because they have indicated that they do not desire to be members of any organisation by their nonmembership. There is nothing in this Bill to compel them to be members of either organisation, and all we do in Section 22 is consult them by way of ballot for the purpose of assisting the tribunal to arrive at a determination under Section 21. What is the idea of consulting these unorganised workers? Some of them may be non-trade unionists by compulsion, for the reason that nobody wants to associate with them. Why are they brought in for the purpose of the ballot?
The speech which Deputy Norton has made has overthrown another of the objections urged against this Bill. Up to this, we have been told that one of the purposes of this Bill was to force workers, willynilly, into a union to which they might have objection. The Deputy has cited a hypothetical case based, apparently, upon the existing trade union organisations of the railway workers. He referred to one union having 10,000 members, and another union having 5,000 members, and one or other of these organisations applying to the tribunal for the sole right to organise the members of the other union, plus the 5,000 unorganised workers to whom he referred. I do not know whether there are 5,000 persons working on the railways who are not members of any trade organisation but, surely, if we are to give one or other of the trade unions the right to organise people who have not hitherto joined any organisation, the people who are to be affected by a determination in that form have the ordinary human right to say in advance to which of these organisations they would prefer to belong. Surely that is one of the circumstances which the tribunal would be bound, under Section 21, to take into consideration.
As I mentioned that point, perhaps I might go back to the point Deputy Norton made firstly, that there was nothing in Section 22 which bound the tribunal to have regard to the result of any ballot which they might require to be taken. It is not necessary in every section to repeat the direction to the tribunal given in a previous section, and if Deputy Norton had studied Section 21 he would have seen that the tribunal, before determining an application, has to consider all the circumstances of the case. Surely one of the most pertinent circumstances in the case would be the result of a ballot which the tribunal itself had directed to be taken. This is, I think, the situaation: (1) if the tribunal does require a ballot to be taken, it is bound by the terms of Section 21 to take the result of that ballot into consideration, and (2) if the tribunal is asked to grant to a trade union, or to two or more trade unions, the exclusive right to organise workers who have not hitherto joined any trade union, the workers to be affected by that determination have a right to have their views ascertained.
It seems to me quite a natural thing that the tribunal should try to ascertain their views by ballot. I do not know that there is any other way in which they could be ascertained with simplicity, and I suppose with accuracy. Similarly, if a trade union applies to the tribunal for the sole right to continue to operate in a field into which other trade unions have already entered, though not controlling a majority of the workers, surely that tribunal would have the right— or the duty—to ascertain the views of those other workers as to the decision which it should take on that application. That would naturally be one of the circumstances which the tribunal would have to take into consideration.
The third point made by Deputy Norton was, why this provision for a ballot related only to the unions of workmen. The answer is simple and practical. The number of workmen to be affected by the decision may be considerable. As a rule, the number of masters to be affected by a decision of the tribunal will not be considerable, and their views can be readily obtained by a simple questionaire without its being necessary to take a ballot. I think I have answered the main points which were made.
I should like to get a little more information on this section. As the section stands, I take it that if the tribunal decides to have a ballot taken it can be taken only through existing trade unions.
No.
Let me put a case to the Minister which is perhaps a little more difficult than the case put by Deputy Norton. More than one union claims to cater for general workers. It is safe to say that there are tens of thousands of general workers who do not belong to any union and are unorganised. Some of these general workers belong to small county and town unions, and these are to be wiped out under this Bill. These workers will cease to be organised. Will the Minister tell the House how, under this section, the views of these thousands of workmen are to be ascertained by ballot or otherwise? How is a register of the men entitled to vote to be compiled, and by whom? Let us say that two unions go before the tribunal and seek the right to organise general workers all over the country. How is the Minister, or the tribunal, to ascertain the views of the tens of thousands of general workers who are unorganised, if their view is to be taken into consideration at all? I move to report progress.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again at 8 o'clock.