The number of speakers who have taken part in this discussion is an indication of the interest taken in this House in the new Department of Labour. While a number of speakers were critical of the labour situation, the Minister will recognise that neither he nor his officials have been singled out as people who are not doing their job. We are all prepared to give them the opportunity of doing the job they have been appointed to do. Some people have criticised the setting up of a Department of Labour, but we in the Labour Party have always felt that a Department of Labour would help to solve some of the problems we have had since the foundation of the State.
I was rather amused by some of the comments I heard during the debate and I should like to refer to one or two. It is as well to point out to those who talked about planning and the necessity for having a policy for the future so that we should be able to forecast our labour requirements in years to come, that the first thing we have to do is to try to find jobs for the 40,000 to 50,000 people who are unemployed. We are able to shrug off the unemployment position, as we have been doing for years, by saying: "Well, there is always that number unemployed here." There is no reason why there should be that number. When people compare the position here with that in Britain, it should be remembered that even though the number of unemployed in Britain has reached what to us would be alarming proportions, the number of jobs available there are still greater than the number of people looking for jobs. When we reach that position, we can afford to be critical of our neighbour and say that they are not doing their job properly.
The position here unfortunately is that the number of unemployed tends to grow at this time of year and for some reason it has grown this year at a faster rate than it did for a number of years. If we take the figure of 40,000 odd, plus another 16,000 which the Department of Social Welfare wrapped up in figures because of the change in the manner of the compilation of figures earlier this year, we realise that there are between 50,000 and 60,000 on the unemployed register, people who need jobs and have not got them. Last night Deputy Dillon was talking about the people who go to the labour exchange to draw the dole.
I like listening to Deputy Dillon because he is one of the last of the old-time orators and he can make a case for anything. Even if I disagree with him, as I did on this occasion, he is still worth listening to. I think it should be put on record, however, that everybody who goes to the labour exchange does not do so to sign on for the dole, which was a slang expression for those drawing unemployment assistance. Most people go to the unemployment exchange to draw unemployment benefit to which they are entitled by virtue of the fact that they have worked and stamped unemployment cards for a number of years. They are not ashamed to do so and they should not be ashamed, nor should those, who through no fault of their own have been unable to find work, be ashamed to sign on for the dole when unemployment benefit runs out.
It is important to make that clear because the impression was being given that there was a group of people who wanted to do nothing else but draw the dole. If Deputy Dillon had as close an association with working-class people as I have, he would realise that there is a very great distinction and even very many of those who have to draw the dole would much prefer to be working.
Deputy Dillon also gave his speech —I do not know whether it was speech No. 16 or No. 17—which we have heard so often, about the classless society in which we live. I would be the last in the world to suggest that Deputy Dillon should grow up, because he has grown up a long time ago, but he should give up trying to create the impression—as should anybody else who does the same—that we live in a classless society because we do not. We live in a society of "haves" and "have nots"; those who have make sure that everybody knows they have and make everybody feel that those who have not got as much wealth as they have are not as good as they are. We have another group in between. This is one of the things which really rile me. We have the group who seem to think that even among those who have very little, there should be a distinction.
I refer to the practice which has grown up over the years that in the Civil Service, local authority employment, and indeed in civilian employment generally, the person who is established is entitled, if he falls sick, to sick pay over a lengthy period and gets more holidays than the ordinary person. The same applies to many other staff positions, as they are called. There are then, others who work very hard and without whom the people to whom I have referred would not be in their jobs at all. These people get the shortest holidays the law will allow and they have no sick pay scheme and no pension scheme. They are supposed to be a kind of untouchable class who must be content with much lower wages and with much less generally than other people, who are in fact their fellow workers, are enjoying. We have, in fact, a three-tier society and when I hear people talking about a classless society existing here, it makes me see red.
There is no doubt that we have still the greatest lot of snobs I ever met in any country, and I have travelled around a few. We have, on the top, the people with wealth who believe that God intended them to have it and it does not matter if they made it themselves or if it was left to them by a father, a grandfather or somebody else. It does not matter whether or not they have a university education or whether or not they can write their name, if they have money or property, they believe they are in a class of their own and that everybody underneath them is in a lower order. We have too, the middle group who are workers themselves and who probably do not mean it but who seem to think that they also are beings superior to the people at the bottom who are doing the spade work.
If the Minister for Labour sets out to improve the position and achieves what Deputy Dillon seems to think is already here, a classless society, coming generations will thank him for it. It is something that has to be done. The Minister may say that private employers have to cut their cloth to their measure and that they would not be able to provide all the facilities for pension schemes, sick pay and everything else that the workers seem to think they are entitled to. If that is true, and I agree that there are some firms that may not be doing so well and would have difficulty in doing these things, it cannot be said of the State.
I want to repeat what I said about a month ago in regard to lower paid employees, that is, that the State is the worst employer in the country. I have no hesitation in repeating that. The State is in the unique position that when a dispute occurs, whether the dispute is over wages or working conditions, or sick pay or a pension scheme, discussions may take place between the State's representative, the civil servants, and workers' representatives, who are trade union officials, and that ends it because there is no appeal from their decision. Last week the Minister kindly received a deputation from my union and I put these points to him. They cannot be repeated too often. We find ourselves in the position that we are going to law with the devil and holding court in hell. We go in to discuss matters with the officials and whether they are right or wrong, they make an offer and there is no appeal from that offer; if they do not make an offer, there is no appeal from their refusal to do so.
It can be said that they can go on strike. There are certain jobs in which they can but there are certain jobs under the State in which a strike just does not matter. What does it matter if forestry workers, working up in the mountains, go on strike? If they ceased to work it would not matter as nobody would care. Nobody has worked there for hundreds of years before and so nobody will notice. What hope have they of forcing their will on an employer? The State are taking advantage of this.
During the term of office of the first inter-Party Government, followed by an amendment of the last inter-Party Government, arrangements were made for certain things to be done regarding employees of local authorities in the granting of the right to those employees to take a dispute with their employer to the Labour Court through their trade union. This has resulted in such employees improving immensely their conditions of employment and wages, but the State still reserves the right to say whether or not something can be done, and there is no appeal. At every other step, from the manual worker up, there is a right of appeal to some type of tribunal but those on the bottom of the pile are nobody's concern. They are not entitled to anything except what the State decides to give. If the State decides to give nothing, that is their hard luck.
A typical example of this is the case of the negotiations which took place in February, 1965, between the Department of Lands and the trade unions on the question of a pension scheme and sick pay scheme. I am informed that a recommendation on at least one of those matters was sent to the Department of Finance in March of that year and ever since, when the matter is raised, all we can get is a reply from the Department that the matter is still under active consideration. I give them credit that recently they have had the good sense to leave out the "active" and say that the matter is "under consideration". No later than today at Question Time, the Minister for Lands said it was still under consideration. If it were a private employer or a local authority, the matter would have been settled in three weeks by taking it to the Labour Court and getting a recommendation. Simply because the situation was such that the authorities felt these people could not take industrial action, the matter has been long-fingered.
Another matter which the Minister may know about, and in which he must take some interest in future, is negotiation at local authority level because this year local authorities negotiated with the trade unions for wage increases and recommendations were made for an increase of £1 a week in some cases with effect from 1st April and in many cases with effect from 1st May. The Department of Local Government and the Department of Health decided to notify county managers that they would allow payment only from 1st June. Can the Minister imagine what would happen if this occurred in private employment? If it happened with CIE or Bord na Móna or Aer Lingus or anybody else, the Minister knows quite well what would happen. There would be a strike overnight and after the row, some Minister would say that those fellows were careless about their jobs and did not consider the interests of the national economy but they would get their £1 a week. Simply because it was the case of local authorities, the two Ministers concerned decided they would not get it.
The matter is not finished yet but is going to the Labour Court, and I believe a recommendation will be made which will settle it eventually. This shows that the State is miles behind everybody else as regards wages and conditions. We get plenty of lectures; Ministers are preaching about the necessity for good labour relations, and yet we have situations such as I have instanced where the State itself is very much behind private employers.
I think the Labour Court is doing a very good job at present in rather difficult conditions. One of my colleagues speaking last night said something through a slip of the tongue at which I saw the Minister smile and I imagine it may be referred to in his reply. He referred to the Labour Court supplying conciliation and arbitration. Of course the Labour Court does not supply arbitration except in exceptional circumstances. Both sides can agree to its arbitration and in that case the Labour Court will arbitrate and the decision is accepted. In most case they supply conciliation and make recommendations which can be accepted or rejected by either side. There are two courts consisting of three persons. We believe that is not sufficient, particularly at times when wage rounds are being discussed. We often find trade unions make applications and are left for months on end. It appears that the trigger-happy people, those who are prepared to go on strike very quickly, get precedence when the Labour Court is considering investigating disputes. This can be avoided if there are sufficient personnel to deal with all cases at the one time.
I should like to pay a special tribute to the conciliation officers. They do a wonderful job but there is one thing I dislike about it. The people concerned may not be too happy about this comment. I know that conciliation officers can be, and have proved to be excellent negotiators, people who can throw oil on troubled waters and produce a solution out of an almost impossible situation, a solution which is acceptable to both sides. After a while they get promotion and in the ordinary way they pass out of the Labour Court and go back to the Civil Service and may finish up in high posts such as Secretaries of Departments. I think a good negotiator who goes to the Labour Court and is a success should not be changed.
We have had cases over the years of "stumers" making a lot of bad mistakes before eventually they pick up the right way to do things. Labour relations are important enough to justify getting the very best people and keeping them, even if it means promoting them within that service and paying them at the rate they would get if promoted outside it, rather than moving them along and depending on others who do not understand the position as well.
We have heard from all Parties about the necessity to reduce the number of trade unions. This is something about which I claim to know quite a lot because, as general secretary of a trade union, I believe that those who are not intimately associated with trade unions tend to be like the hurlers on the ditch: they know all the problems and all the answers and yet they do not know exactly what makes it tick. Although we have a multiplicity of trade unions, most of them have become specialists in their own field, and while it is true that on occasion certain of them may cross the boundary of a group of workers negotiating in a trade dispute, at present we are civilised enough to realise that clashing with ourselves is not the answer to any problem. I think even the employers have found to their cost that the trade unions now on every occasion will combine—I am talking about real trade unions—to fight an employer if a fight is on their hands.
There has been comment on the grouping of unions. These groups are in most cases doing pretty well, and while it might be very difficult to deal with 20 or 30 trade unions, if the groups act responsibly—and most of them do—the situation is very easy. There is an executive committee appointed to do the negotiating. I would advise the Minister to examine the workings of one particular group, that is, the Bord na Móna group, who have been doing excellent work, who have practically wiped out strikes on the bogs, who have certainly wiped out unofficial strikes, who have carried out their negotiations most satisfactorily and who have a regulation that nobody can be sacked on the bog just by somebody going out and telling him, as was done before: "You are finished; off you go." No matter what he does, he is suspended on pay until the matter is investigated. That is the civilised way of doing it and has resulted in the building up of very good relations between the trade unions, the men who work on the bogs and their employers.
That does not create any problem whatsoever, and if the Minister examines the workings of it, he will be very glad to find this solution is a lot easier than the solution of trying to persuade half a dozen trade unions who have an entirely different outlook on many things that they should all come together in one union and forget about their traditions. One thing most of the trade unions in this country feel more than anything else is that they have got a tradition which they built themselves on which the people who went before them built and they are not prepared to relinquish it.
Reference has been made to the necessity for redundancy pay for trade union officials. The Minister is as well aware as I am that the big problem with many trade unions is that of getting good negotiators to take over from the old people who are moving on at retiral age. He need have no worry about redundancy among trade union officials. If there were to be a break up of unions, the greatest difficulty would be deciding who would get the skilled negotiators who would be on the loose as a result of that.
Deputy Dillon said the trade unions were the worst employers in the country. I do not know how long he worked for a trade union. I have worked for one for 20 years and I have more experience of trade union negotiations and administration than he has. I am perfectly satisfied the standard being set by the trade unions is one which the employers could very well follow.
Reference was made to employment exchanges and what was to happen to them. I understand they are remaining under the Department of Social Welfare, but would the Minister try to have some kind of list drawn up whereby people who go to an employment exchange will find that it is just that? I am not aware of such a list except at one period of the year, that is, during the period when there is some kind of relief work going for those who have been unemployed for a long time. The list is sent out from the employment exchange to the local authority or whoever is going to employ these people, and that is the only time a list of vacancies is ever drawn up at the exchange.
Maybe the Minister is not aware of this, but at the present time there is a big build-up of unemployment in local authority work. Again it is the old story: There is a shortage of money. When there is a shortage of money, the county manager or the county engineer does not lose his job. It is the man who is getting £8 or £9 a week who is laid off, and a dozen of these have to be laid off to save somebody else's wages.
In a number of counties not very far from Dublin, we have a situation where whole areas are being closed down. There are two or three men left just to keep the thing ticking over and the remainder of them are told there is no more employment for them. When I was discussing this question with the Minister the other day, I said I could not understand why there should not be some co-ordination between the Department of Social Welfare and the people responsible for employing these men, many of whom have big families and who would much prefer to be working for a full week. These men are told there is no money available and they are paid £9 or £10 a week for a period of six months, on the condition that they do not do any work. This does not make sense and the people affected by it do not think it makes sense. There should be some attempt made to keep them in employment.
We have reached the stage this year, which has not been reached for many years, at which the permanent employees in local authorities—if you can call them permanent, men who have been employed there for a long number of years—are being laid off, and many of them will be unemployed at Christmas and possibly until next April or May. There is no point in talking about improving labour relations or improving the conditions of workers as long as we find these people laid off when it comes to the winter, who have no guarantee of employment and who are just told they must go.
In most local authorities, there is an arrangement whereby when people are being laid off, they are told a fortnight beforehand that the job is running out and, therefore, they get an opportunity of looking around, even if it is only to make arrangements at the employment exchange. In the lower grades, that does not happen. They are given their cards and told they are not wanted any longer. Again, that is something which will have to be looked at if the Department of Labour is to achieve what it sets out to achieve.
One other matter which is hardly the Minister's responsibility but in which he might possibly take an interest because it affects employment, is that every Christmas there is in practically every town, in a few country areas and in the city, schemes known as the VEC, schemes which give employment over the Christmas period to people who have been a long time on the employment exchange, people who have not had work for a long time. They get a few week's work before Christmas and at least they are able to buy a Christmas dinner. It has become the practice over the years that these schemes are sanctioned later and later, and despite the fact that they are in the possession of the Board of Works, who are responsible for them, for many months, I am informed that notification has not yet gone out to the towns. Therefore, as regards those people who hope to get a few weeks' work over the festive season, it looks as if this Christmas will come along and that they will have to live on what they get, as Deputy Dillon says, on the dole.
There is another matter about which the Minister may not be aware. We hear talk of training and retraining. Following the introduction of the apprenticeship scheme some years ago, some of us were a little doubtful as to what the result would be for people whom we in the country tend to call —I do not know what they are called in the city—natural people, people who were not very good at book learning. Their fathers may have been carpenters or mechanics, or something like that, and the sons may have a natural aptitude for this work and could become craftsmen with very little training. The effect of the apprenticeship scheme was to deprive these young boys of any chance of ever becoming craftsmen.
On occasion, if there are no apprentices available, with their group certificate from the local technical school, they can be taken on; if not, they are completely out. I know quite a number of these people and I am rather interested in the suggestion that the Department have envisaged a crash course which will turn out tradesmen in a very short time. I do not know whether that has been cleared with the craft unions—I am not prepared to become involved in that at this stage— but I would be very interested to find out what is intended or whether it will have any effect on this type of person.
Within the past few years, in Navan town, a school of furniture was erected by the local vocational education committee. To run that school, apprentices were being brought out on what is known as block release from all over the town, quite a long journey. It is under the Department of Education, but, because of the way the Minister himself or his Department would be affected by it, I should like to find out if he knows anything about this. This year, Meath Vocational Education Committee were notified in March that their grants for the year would be £7,000 less than they were last year and in August of this year, they have been reduced by a further £3,000. This has resulted, among other things, in having that school rendered inoperative and the system by which the apprentices were being taught the rudiments of their trade by experts is no longer in operation.
The experts who were employed specially to teach them are now teaching ordinary woodwork in the halls and broken-down schools around the county. They have gone out there because they were permanent employees of the Department and the unfortunates who were temporary and who were doing that type of work before had to be dismissed. Perhaps the Minister might take an interest because I think the school cost £48,000 when it was built and I think he was Minister for Education at the time. It is a bit thick to find this sort of thing happening while there is talk about an improvement in the facilities for training people, and so on.
