Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Mar 1967

Vol. 226 No. 13

Private Members' Business. - State Employees: Access to Labour Court.

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that manual employees of the Departments of Lands, Agriculture and Fisheries and Defence and the Office of Public Works should have access through their trade unions to the Labour Court in matters affecting wages and working conditions.

(Deputy James Tully).

Mr. Treacy

In the very short time at my disposal last night, I sought to emphasise the urgency and importance of this motion in the names of the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Corish, and the Labour Party Whip, Deputy James Tully. It is the view of all of us in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement that it is vital that a motion of this kind be adopted.

It is difficult to understand the necessity for such a motion, having regard to the speeches made here by Government spokesmen in the past few days and, indeed, in the past hour, on the Estimate for Labour. Deputy Wyse, a Fianna Fáil spokesman, told us of the Minister's great anxiety to bring about peace, understanding and co-operation between workers, employers and the State. References were made to irresponsibility on the part of certain sections of the community and it was clear that these unfair and unfounded remarks were directed at the trade unions. This is strange, especially when one realises that it is the State that is signally lacking in this kind of co-operation. The Minister should put his own House in order before seeking to lecture trade unions as to their responsibility. As the motion indicates, Government Ministers for Lands, Agriculture and Fisheries and Defence in particular, have made no provision whatsoever for proper consultation and liaison between these Departments and their employees and the unions representing the employees.

It has been a most frustrating exercise for unions representing employees in these State Departments to have had to agitate unrelentingly down the years for a better deal for these employees, to no good effect. They have been frustrated on every side. When they take up matters appertaining to conditions of employment or wages with departmental chiefs, it usually transpires that these heads of Departments have no function in the matter, that it is a ministerial function. We have seen trade union leaders so utterly frustrated that time and again they have had to raise questions in the House with reference to the conditions of employment of these men and especially with reference to the fringe benefits which are so important to workers today. Greater emphasis is being laid today on fringe benefits such as a guaranteed payment in case of sickness, infirmity or injury through accident. The need for retirement pensions is also greatly emphasised. Great advances have been made in respect of these matters in industry. Many thousands of workers in this country do enjoy these important fringe benefits.

It is significant that employees comparable with those referred to in the motion, such as road workers employed by county councils, have conditions of employment applied to them that are far superior to those applicable in the State Departments referred to in the motion. County council employees are covered by the Superannuation Act which was introduced by another Government and which provides for pension on retirement. The workers contribute to that pension out of their wages. It is a great safeguard and a source of consolation to them to know that when they come to the end of their working life, they will receive a pension based on years of service and on the wages payable at the time of retirement. The pension can be £3, £4, or £5 a week and this, supplemented by the old age contributory pension, makes for reasonable comfort for these employees after long years of loyal and devoted service. These employees are directly under the Minister for Local Government.

It is an anomaly, which must be corrected, that their counterparts in the Department of Lands, Agriculture and Fisheries and Defence and the Office of Public Works do not receive such a concession. Why should there be a distinction? It is unfair, unjust and inequitable and must be discontinued. It is humiliating in the extreme that trade union leaders should be so frustrated in their endeavours to improve the lot of this category of workers. It is clear that it is Government policy to keep these workers down lest the State might be regarded as pathfinders in the matter of improved conditions of employment. There is no danger that any industrialist would be upset by the standards laid down by these Departments because the wages payable to these State employees are inferior and fringe benefits are not provided for them. Let there be no anxiety that the Ministers might be starting a spiral or creating unrest or a general demand for a better deal. The people to whom we refer are on subsistence level as compared with other categories of workers.

The House may wonder why we are pressing this motion, especially having regard to the fact that the Minister for Labour, in his brief remarks last night, stated that to all intents and purposes he was accepting the spirit and intention of it. Having listened to the Minister and having heard his remarks, we are not satisfied that we should allow him to accept the motion in the context of the statement made by him. He stated:

As Deputies are aware, the proposals in regard to the 1946 Act which I supplemented last April do indicate my intention to provide that industrial workers employed by the State will have access to the Labour Court for the purpose of trade disputes.

In that connection we are concerned with the words "industrial workers". The workers to whom we refer in this motion are clearly non-industrial workers. They are workers employed in the Departments of Lands, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. We want clarification as to whether the Minister in using the words "industrial workers", was taking into account these categories.

He also talked about the acceptance of the motion on the basis that it would include all workers concerned who do not come within the ambit of the Civil Service conciliation and arbitration machinery. I do not know what brief the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance may have for tonight but we would want to be satisfied that the Minister's acceptance of the motion implies specifically and clearly, without ambiguity, that it covers all the categories of workers referred to in the motion. The words, "industrial workers" certainly cut out a substantial number of them.

It will be appreciated that these workers, being State employees, to all intents and purposes do not have the right to withdraw their labour. They are precluded under the statute from taking strike action. This places them in a most invidious position in that they must suffer interminably intolerable conditions with standards far lower than those which apply to workers in the country at large. They have no redress whatever. Their trade union leaders are wholly frustrated by the duplicity and back-pedalling of Ministers in this House and by the fact that they are denied access to the Labour Court.

It is fundamental to the motion that these workers be no longer treated as second-class citizens but that they should have full access to the Labour Court as has every other worker in this country, particularly having regard to their high productivity. If one considers forestry workers, it is true they have access to the Labour Court but they are involved in this motion; they are obliged to work winter and summer in conditions that leave much to be desired. This fact has been harped on in this House on many occasions. They are now operating under a time and motion system which has the effect of horsing them, of extending them to the full capacity of their strength and endurance. The Minister concerned does a great disservice to himself, the Government and to the workers by condemning them to conditions lower than those which apply to other workers.

I do not want to hog any more of the time allowed for discussion of this motion but I would ask the Minister to come back to the House and clarify the position with regard to these workers, to clarify in particular the reference to industrial workers which he made in his speech and which could not refer to many categories of workers referred to in the motion. At a time when the Government are admonishing all of us to strive for greater co-operation and more harmonious relationships, it is disgraceful that we should have to bring in this motion asking for the granting to these people of the right to go to the Labour Court.

Before concluding last night, I was coming to the point of saying how embarrassing it is for various trade union leaders who represent these men, some of them Members of this House, and Deputy Tully in particular, to have to be putting questions to the Minister for Lands, Agriculture and Defence, asking when they will bring in sick pay schemes for these workers, or whether they are going to provide pension schemes for them, only to find these Ministers passing the buck, evading the issue and saying that they will bring in these schemes when there has been consultation with other Ministers.

We have always had the Fianna Fáil ruse, when a Minister is in difficulty, of saying that this must be a decision of the Cabinet. I would ask the respective Ministers involved in this serious injustice to the workers to get down with the Minister for Labour and end for all time the humiliation imposed on the workers under their charge.

Mr. Cluskey

When one considers that for the past three or four sitting days of this House we have been discussing the Estimate for the comparatively new Department of Labour, one wonders why it is necessary to have a motion such as the one before the House tabled for consideration. Leading spokesmen of the Government Party over the past few days have referred to the need for better relations between employer and employee and have applauded the Minister for Labour for some of the measures which he stated he intended to introduce. We have also heard Fianna Fáil Deputies claiming that the Government were, if not solely, then largely, responsible for any of the improvements enjoyed by workers over a number of years. Yet we find in a Bill introduced by Fianna Fáil in 1946 that the employees mentioned in this motion were excluded from recourse to the Labour Court in order to air publicly, and to have an impartial decision given on, any grievance which they may have.

We know the difficulties in which these workers find themselves when in a serious and responsible manner they try, through their trade unions, to negotiate on any claim which they wish to submit to the Government, who are their employers. We have heard it stated, and it was not denied, that a claim served three years ago has not yet been finalised by one Department and that the trade union officials and the rank and file members of the union who negotiated with the civil servants who are responsible on behalf of the Government find it, to say the least, frustrating in so far as they do not get anywhere. The only reply they received over a period of three years in regard to one claim was an acknowledgment that the claim had been received.

It is all right for Fianna Fáil spokesmen to get up time and again and tell workers that they must be good boys and must not unduly press any claim they may be considering, but surely it is not too much to ask that Government employees should have the right to submit a claim to the Labour Court, to have their arguments in support of that claim made in public, and for the Government, or their spokesmen, to have the right to argue the claim in public and to have an impartial decision or view on the justification or otherwise of the claim by the Labour Court? When one wonders why these people were excluded, the only conclusion one can come to is that they are amongst the worst paid workers in the employment of the State, with possibly the worst conditions also. One can only think that the Government, realising this, are afraid to justify in public their refusal to improve these conditions.

Some time ago the Minister spoke about introducing legislation in respect of trade unions and said that he was considering making the findings of the Court compulsory. The very real argument was then put up that if this was done, workers might be reluctant to go to the court. The Minister, being at times realistic, reconsidered that aspect of the proposed legislation because he realises, as does everyone who has any knowledge of industrial relations, that the Labour Court serves a very useful function in the field of industrial relations and that it has been responsible for more settlements than any other body we have known in this country. It should also be realised that not all strikes concern large issues, nor are they all in respect of increases in wages, nor are they all because people want three or four weeks' holidays. A number of issues go before the Labour Court which if not solved can lead to strikes; there can be a build-up of grievances, small or minor grievances they may be considered, but if they are not attended to, there is a build-up which will condition the minds of workers to the belief that there is no justice to be got from their employer and if they have just one more—small, if it is considered in isolation—grievance, then that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back and then you end up with a strike.

A number of the people referred to in this motion are not allowed to go on strike. They are precluded from taking strike action under the law. They are precluded under the existing law from presenting any grievances they may have to the Labour Court. They are left solely at the mercy of the civil servants who are instructed by the Minister as to what attitude they will adopt on any particular issue. These are people—and no one will deny this—who have many grievances. They have absolutely no way of rectifying these grievances without being forced into a situation where they may take very drastic and serious action.

All we are asking in this motion is that manual workers employed by the State should have the same rights as any other worker in the State. The Government should stop treating these people as second-class citizens and give them their full rights. We do not think the Government should be allowed to hide behind legislation which they introduce. We feel that if they are going to resist the justifiable demands and claims of these people, they should do so publicly, and they should make their case before an impartial body which we accept the Labour Court as being. They should accept the same responsibility as they ask other employers and employees to accept.

Last night we heard Deputy Tully speaking about the negotiations carried out by the trade unions which represent these employees. We also heard a brief history of the attitude being adopted by the Government towards these employees. When one listens to the Minister for Labour, and hears the workers condemned from the Fianna Fáil benches by speaker after speaker, when one reads this motion, and realises the true attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil Government towards the workers, it makes one wonder just how seriously the workers will take the Minister for Labour.

We know that the workers referred to in this motion are engaged in certain types of work. Let us take a forestry worker. Were he to stop work in the morning, he could be ignored by the Government. He could be ignored for three, six, nine or 12 months. There would not be a very great outcry about a forestry worker stopping work. He would not do the economy any great harm, I suppose, over a period of six to 12 months. He would not inflict any great hardship on any other section of the community. There would not be any great pressure on the Government to try to deal in a realistic and just manner with whatever grievances he might have.

We heard the Minister, a Government spokesman, state that one cannot achieve one's object just because one has strength—because one is industrially strong—and that one cannot go on strike regardless of the consequences to one's fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. Workers who are not industrially strong—let us face it—are the people covered by this motion. These men are in that category where they have not got any great industrial strength, but they have— and this cannot be denied—a tremendous amount of justice on their side.

It is only when one considers the wages and conditions on which many of these people work, and compares them with the wages and conditions of similar employees in outside employment, that one realises the justice of any claim they may be pursuing. Instead of just making sounds about justice, and instead of condemning the workers for trying to negotiate in a responsible manner claims which they feel are just, the Government should look at their own set-up and realise that the manual workers employed by these Departments are denied the right to present their arguments in a responsible manner to support or justify any claim they may be making to an impartial body which was set up by the Government under the 1946 Industrial Relations Act for the very purpose of reconciling any differences that may exist between employer and employee, without that difference developing to the point where a stoppage of work takes place.

When one realises that this body was set up to cater for workers who had a right in the ultimate to stop working and bring direct pressure to bear on the employer, surely it is only just and reasonable that people who have been placed in a position where they have not that ultimate weapon should have access to the Court in order to justify themselves and have an impartial finding on any claim they may wish to process.

The Minister gave an ambiguous kind of acceptance in a very brief statement last night to the principle embodied in this motion. If the Minister would elaborate on that statement and make it quite clear that acceptance of the motion would cover, as mentioned by Deputy Crotty and Deputy Tully, all workers employed in the particular categories mentioned, we shall regard that as a step forward. We shall congratulate the Minister on his belated enlightenment and we can stop the discussion from going any further. Unless we are clearly satisfied that acceptance by the Minister will cover all manual workers employed by the Department we intend, on behalf of those workers, to pursue this matter to the full and by every means open to us.

Mr. M. O'Leary

It is abhorrent to us in this Party that any body of workers in the State service should have no vehicle to make their complaints or to negotiate their standard of living. It is as a result of our experience over the years of the predicament of many thousands of workers in State employment who do not have the opportunity of going before an impartial board, that we have tabled this motion.

It is quite some years since the Minister for Education, Deputy O'Malley, was in the Board of Works. I recall negotiating with him at a period when there was a strike in the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park in Killarney, and there were certain threats that as a result of withdrawing their labour, the cattle in that park would go unmilked—the same situation may arise in the next week or two. In any case it was a serious situation and I recall at one conference in the Board of Works being informed by the official side that the worker in rural Ireland must await our entry into the Common Market for social justice. One can make such magistral statements only to those who have no way of ventilating their grievances.

It is a great thing to have industrial peace in the country, but industrial peace can be purchased at too high a price. If the price of industrial peace in the State sector for manual workers, forestry workers and others is to be that these workers must have no way of ventilating their grievances, then this is not a peace that our Party would stand over or condone. The industrial peace we seek would be that where there would be no lack of opportunity for the workers involved to voice their grievances, a peace in which there would be free negotiation with their employers, a peace that would be the outcome of just negotiations and a realistic balance between employer and worker. A situation of constrained peace on workers who have no means of voicing their grievances is not one in which workers in this country should find themselves.

It brings up the point that for the most part the basic wage of people in this type of employment must be the major issue in their minds, because there are very few opportunities for workers in such employment, as a result of the nature of the job, to get much overtime. Therefore, the basic wage is paramount in this type of employment. If—and we have quite a number of cases to prove this—these workers cannot maintain some kind of relationship with the rates of wages of other workers, inevitably they drop behind in their wage rates, and their basic wage drops very far behind.

In the absence of negotiating machinery, we do not find the State acting in a just manner towards these workers and saying: "We find your wage rate has dropped back appreciably by comparison with that of other people in similar employment and we therefore have decided that your wage rate should increase by so much next month." In fact we find, as people have said during this debate, that their wage rates have dropped down quite a number of rungs in comparison to other workers. There are cases of people whose particular grievance, perhaps a wage matter, has not been aired in any court or has not been negotiated with any responsible official for a number of years, whose cases are relegated to dusty files; they have not been looked at by the officials involved, and if one asked the ordinary worker two years after a dispute has occurred whether he had lost hope, he would confirm the fear that he had lost hope.

The astonishing thing in regard to the servile position of these employees of the State—and no one could describe their position as being otherwise—is that if it is a definition of a slave that he is his master's property, then these people who work as State servants are slaves in a very literal sense. The Minister has stated that the case of these people is catered for under existing legislation. I am not quite sure that he has come all the way with us on this motion, but just to make quite sure that it sticks, we have decided to push the motion to the limit.

Whatever our political affiliations in this House may be, I think it is a paradoxical situation, and certainly not one we condone, that the arbiters of the standard of living of these workers should be civil servants who themselves do not appear to be subject to any great check in regard to increases in their incomes. It is extraordinary that manual workers in the State's employment cannot argue their case in the light of day with other workers, that there seems to be some question of security whereby they cannot compare themselves with other workers and argue their case in the Labour Court I cannot see that the State will find itself at any greater expense by going to the Labour Court and by allowing State workers to go there. If it is the mentality that the State is not agreeable to these workers retaining parity with outside workers, then this should be made clear.

The higher officials involved in many of the Departments to which we have referred today are subject to no constraint whatever in regard to their incomes. Their wage rates expand year by year by mysterious means decided upon by the higher authorities, while other grades of workers have to fight out their case in the full glare of press publicity, adverse press publicity in many cases, and against the advice of Government Ministers. It appears that with the entire approval of the Government, the increments and wage rates of civil servants expand. I do not say they are not worth their weight in the salaries they receive but I suggest that the manual workers in these Departments, should, at least, have similar rights to air their grievances and say what their worth ought to be in terms of pounds, shillings and pence.

It is the ultimate in hypocrisy that the very people whose wage rates move on well-oiled wheels year by year, subject to no check, should be the very people who preach against the manual workers and prophesy doom because of inflation in the economy if there is any suggestion that these workers should get an increase, even when the cost of living merits such an increase. It is the ultimate in double-thinking on the part of the Establishment that they should persist in this campaign against the efforts of the lower paid workers to improve their standards of living.

There is another matter involved here. Employees in the State service should not be victimised in their wage rates as against employees in private employment. We are very concerned in the Labour Party about private opulence and public squalor. It is the mark of a private enterprise mentality that the riches in the economy should go to those who really do not earn them. In the same way, the rewards go to the wrong people. They go to those who are not productive. Those who do a fair day's work are the people who are penalised under our wage system.

We wish to restore an elementary right to manual workers in State employment. They should be as free as any other group to argue their case. They should have the same right as any other group to have their case heard in a fair way. Such elementary rights would not lead to a dissolution of society, would not lead to danger, or to a threat to the State's impartiality, but it would certainly improve the standing of the State and the kind of morality that exists in relation to incomes. It is perhaps unfashionable to mention this, but Connolly said at one time that we measure the advance of civilisation by the advance of its lowest elements. I humbly suggest there is need for some such advance, for some spreading of light in the State service. These manual workers should have the right to argue their case openly in the light of day.

Other countries do not suffer from this relic of British rule under which State employees must be separated from the generality of the citizens. Most continental countries allow such workers the same rights as other citizens. It would enhance the sincerity of the Minister for Labour and his Department if they saw to it that such workers were given the elementary right of referring their case to the Labour Court. I refer to the Court as we know it since 1946. If we are to believe the Minister, it will be changed out of all recognition in the future. If such workers could go to the Labour Court in the ordinary way, comparing their position with that of similar workers elsewhere, keeping a certain relationship in wages with other workers, we would be bringing genuine industrial peace to this sector of employment and forming a more lasting and better relationship between management and these employees than exists at present.

We cannot cite any number of days lost in any particular year where these workers are concerned and, because of that, it may be argued that peace reigns in that particular sector of our economy. As I said earlier, one can have industrial peace at too high a price. One of the prices our Party feel we should not pay for industrial peace is the price of complete lack of redress for those in such employment and a complete lack of the fundamental right to air grievances. This is not the kind of peace a real democracy would wish its employees to enjoy.

There is a danger inherent in this situation. Where you are sure your employees cannot embarrass you by any public statement, cannot go to wicked trade union officials to state their case, then the official side is supreme in its control of that particular wage situation and there is a great temptation for the official side to take the long view. I think it was Lord Keynes who said that in the long run we are all dead. I referred at the outset to negotiations at which we were told that the rural workers should wait for the Common Market for the coming of social justice. That is an arrogant approach, asking workers to wait for such an unpredictable evolution as our entry into the Common Market. This is stated with all the arrogance of power in a situation in which employees have no redress and no way of pressing their wage claims in the open at Labour Court level. As I say, the official side are subject to this temptation.

The granting of these elementary rights to manual workers in the State service is long overdue. A different practice prevails in other countries and we can see no reason why that practice should not be adopted here. In the present situation the official side can overlook the genuine grievances of these manual employees. They have control over the standards of those working in this sector and the workers have no redress. This situation should be rectified immediately. Other State employees are subject to no such check on their earnings. If I question their economic worth, I cannot question the fact that their negotiating machinery appears to be effective because there is no shortage of tribute to the quality of their work in the wage packets they receive. I ask that the same elementary justice be afforded to manual workers.

I am aware of the deep, ingrained, prejudice that exists. There is one law for those on one side of the social fence and another for those on the other. This is especially true in the attitude to manual workers. In private employment there are holidays with pay and sickness benefit for clerical staffs and for management. For the vast majority who work in these enterprises, far different standards prevail. This, of course, is no more than the reflection of the kind of basic injustice in our society. Those who preach every day of the week about economic efficiency and about improving productivity are the drones of our society, the very people who live on dividends and never work, who go to their offices at 11.30 a.m. or mid-day and drive home in the afternoon in their Mercedes—and I am not necessarily referring to Government Ministers.

Somebody talked about the veritable backbone of this country. Undoubtedly, the backbone of this country are those who work an eight hour day or 50 hour week, those who work on the land, in firms and the manual workers in State employment. We do not very often hear their voices raised about the way they think the economy should be run, but the air is thick with Ministerial announcements about how they think the economy should be run. There are civil servants coming from obscurity telling us how the economy should be run, what the targets should be in the economic programmes, who have very little acquaintance with what it is to work a heavy day's work at the bench.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is responsible for all this administration. Civil servants are not the subject of the discussion here.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I am pointing out a double think, an attitude running throughout the country.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is very easy to discuss here people who have no means of replying or refuting the arguments put forward. All this comes under the Minister's responsibility for administration.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I do not wish to be personal towards any particular servant of any income group in the Government service. We all have the right to elect any political Party we want and we can see that our viewpoint is expressed through these Parties. I am making the point that there is a bit of double thinking. The incomes of those who preach about what way the economy should run are not subject to the same checks as are those of the majority of the people, who must argue the size of their pay packet in the full glare of publicity at the Labour Court and elsewhere. There are people employed in the Departments we referred to who get their increases without much trouble.

An Ceann Comhairle

This is criticising the civil servants. They have no redress here against a Deputy and advantage should not be taken of that position to criticise them.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I am not criticising them. I have already applauded them. I have said their negotiations appear to be very good. They may be worth every penny they got.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not refer to civil servants in this connection.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Then let me say there are X individuals in this country whose incomes do not appear to be subject to any check whatever, while there are other individuals, manual workers, whose incomes are subject to very heavy checks indeed. Apparently, they do not have the right to bring their cases to the Labour Court. We make the point that they should have this right. We make the point that many people in this country who pontificate on economic matters apparently do so in ignorance of the real problems that the majority of the people face in their standard of living. We make the point that, whereas the incomes of the majority of people working for a living must be fought out in the full glare of publicity, and a case made in agonising detail with the employers for every shilling extra, everything proved at every point, there are others in this country who have to make no case, who merely notch up a price increase or get an extra director's job. We say it is an injustice that these people should preach to the majority about how the economy should be run.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy wishes to refer to a specific section, he should put down a definite motion and not try to sidestep my ruling.

Mr. M. O'Leary

You find difficulty in following my argument, a Cheann Comhairle, and I find difficulty in following yours. However, I bow to your ruling. We see no reason why there is any great danger or threat to the State in allowing manual workers in these Departments the right to resort to the Labour Court to argue their case from time to time. There is a serious lag in their living standards in comparison even with those of workers in private employment. Although official peace may exist between the authorities and the workers in these Departments, it is a very spurious peace indeed. It is purchased at the price that these people have no right of bringing their case before an impartial tribunal. This is an unjust situation and one not worthy of this State. That is why we put down this motion, which we hope will be approved.

Mr. Pattison

In the short time now available to me, I want to add my support to the motion before the House. This motion mainly concerns rural workers. It covers forestry workers and workers employed by the Board of Works and the Department of Agriculture. Both inside and outside this House, we have been subjected to lectures about how to preserve and repopulate rural Ireland. The treatment of these workers is one of the best means of denuding rural Ireland. The present machinery available to them for the negotiation of their wages and working conditions is most inadequate. Possibly the greatest criticism that can be made of an employer, or a union for that matter, is that he refuses to attend the Labour Court when invited to do so. Here we have the State protecting itself by having a regulation behind which it can shelter and not go to the Labour Court. This is what we want to see put right by the acceptance of this motion.

We all know the kind of regard in which an employer who refuses to attend a conciliation conference or a full hearing is held. The State itself has shown bad example by refusing over the past number of years to attend Labour Court hearings. In the past few months, the Minister for Local Government refused to attend a Labour Court hearing concerning county council road workers. He refused on the ground that under regulation the Labour Court could not demand his attendance. As a result a grave injustice was done to county council employees and we want to make sure that injustice will not be repeated.

I suppose it is a surprise that we should seek to have State employees given the protection of the Labour Court. We would prefer that such workers would not need the Labour Court, that they would be given adequate wages and conditions, but experience has shown the reverse is the case. The Government have proved to be the worst employers so far as low-paid workers are concerned. We need go back no further than the past few months to find how the Government treated low-paid workers—in the application of the £1 a week tenth round wage increase. Forestry workers, workers employed by the Office of Public Works and by the Department of Local Government were denied the £1 increase for many months and when they eventually got it, it was granted from a date less favourable than in the case of any other employees. It was granted reluctantly from 1st June when most employers had granted it from a date in April or dates much earlier than 1st June.

If the Government treat low-paid workers in that manner, it is time the Labour Court was made available to such workers. When the unions representing those workers tried to get the increase implemented from an earlier date which would compare with the date in the case of their fellow-workers in private employment— possibly with employers not in as good a financial position; and some of them paid earlier than April, some time between 1st January and 1st April— the Government had to drag their feet, as usual and wear out the patience of these men.

The workers covered by this motion are not in a good bargaining position. Forestry workers could go on strike for perhaps a month without the Government being at any loss. The Government have played on this for too long and it is now time to give these workers the same access to the Labour Court as their fellow-workers enjoy. Their employment, their wages and conditions are the worst in rural areas and whenever a demand for improvement is made, the excuse given by the Government or the Department representative is that they must not pay any better than this imaginary "local rate". In other words, the Government must always be behind. The Government should set the example and the rate in rural areas. If they are to improve rural areas, bring back and retain people to live and work there, these amenities must be given.

Apart from bad wages and conditions, these workers suffer hardship by not getting full employment due to weather, credit squeezes and lack of finance from time to time. They lose employment in the winter months and this does not help their conditions. They should be guaranteed full employment for the 12 months of the year.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I must now call on the Deputy to conclude.

Mr. Pattison

I am just about to finish. There is nothing as miserable for a worker as not to have a guarantee of constant good employment.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister, when speaking yesterday, said that he was accepting the motion. If he had left it at that, possibly the debate would have finished——

Dr. Hillery

I do not believe a word of it.

Mr. Corish

It is going on because we did not believe you.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister went on to say that he proposed to ask the Minister for Finance to bring industrial workers employed by the Department under the Labour Court. We are not talking about industrial workers, a specific set of workers. If the Minister now wants to intervene to say we have taken a wrong idea——

Dr. Hillery

Anybody who has not conciliation and arbitration will be brought in and given access to the Labour Court.

Mr. James Tully

That was not what the Minister said. He specifically mentioned industrial workers employed by the Department who had not got conciliation and arbitration, an entirely different matter. Deputy Treacy heard the Minister speaking and he is here, and what the Minister said was that because of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, State employees have not come under the Labour Court but that the position could only be changed by legislation. He said that in the proposals for the amendment of the 1946 Act which he circulated last April— incidentally the Minister circulated them to the trade unions and the employers; I was under the impression that he circulated them to the House——

Dr. Hillery

Deputy Treacy saw everything else that was in the proposals.

Mr. James Tully

He did not see that one. The Minister said it is his intention to provide that industrial workers employed by the State will have access to the Labour Court. Those are not the workers we are talking about. We are talking of workers employed by the Land Commission, the Forestry Division, the Board of Works, the Department of Defence and the Department of Agriculture. I would ask the Minister to ensure that agricultural employees are not left outside the scope of the proposed amendment because the Department of Agriculture workers seem to be in a different category.

During the period of office of one of the inter-Party Governments, a Bill was introduced which gave right of access to the Labour Court to local authority employees. Why the workers we are now concerned with were not included, I do not know. If the Minister wanted to do so, he could introduce a short Bill which would include the type of worker to whom we refer in this motion. It is all right to say that he proposes to do it but, unfortunately, the position is that, apart entirely from wages, quite a substantial number of grievances have built up over the years. Those, admittedly, will have to wait until the Minister, in his own good time, introduces a comprehensive Bill to alter the legislation with reference to workers and, in that, he proposes to include the workers to whom we referred. Is there any reason at all why the Minister could not copy the Bill introduced by the inter-Party Government to cover this type of worker and introduce it almost immediately? I am quite sure it would not be opposed in this House. One of the extraordinary things about this debate —I am glad, for this reason alone, that it has gone through—is that the people who have been shouting from the back benches of Fianna Fáil about their interest in workers in general and in State workers in particular were conspicuous by their absence.

Dr. Hillery

They know we are doing this.

Mr. James Tully

A lot of them do not even know their way into the Dáil, except that they see a man in uniform at the gate.

Dr. Hillery

They know it is being done but you did not know.

Mr. James Tully

Literally, they do not care. We had two speakers from Fine Gael. They were anxious to be helpful.

Dr. Hillery

They did not know it was being done, either.

Mr. James Tully

I am sorry they did not know very much about it. This bears out our argument that if you want people to take an interest in the matters that affect workers in this country, you will find them in these Labour benches, and nowhere else. As far as the Minister is concerned, I know that he might be anxious enough to be of assistance. I am quite sure the position is that the Minister does not know the details as we know them.

Does the Minister know that forestry workers at the present time are compelled to work a 5½ day week in the winter? Does he know that, in the summertime, they work a five-day week? Does he know that when they get their annual holidays, the holiday starts on a Saturday morning, even though the Saturday is not a work day? If they have ten days, they get Saturday and the days of the following week and then Saturday again which is a non-working day, in order to make up their holidays? If they had access to the Labour Court, this sort of thing could be killed overnight.

Does the Minister know that forestry workers, Land Commission workers and, indeed, very many other workers applied through their trade unions for a sick pay scheme and a pensions scheme three years ago to the Departments and that still the Departments can only say that the matter is under consideration? If they had the right to go to the Labour Court is it not a fact that this would be cleared up within three weeks?

Does the Minister know that forestry workers and Land Commission workers and, indeed, any other types of State employees working out in the country do not get protective clothing but that they would get it if they had the right to go to the Labour Court? Does the Minister know that they are entitled to get boots when working in water but that they must leave these boots every evening in an old wet dirty box and that the State does not care if they have to go home in their bare feet after their day's work is finished? The boots are issued to them again the next morning. Even in those conditions, does the Minister know that it is nearly impossible in some forests to get the boots issued? A fortnight ago, we were attempting to get boots, requisitioned last October, issued to certain men in Tipperary. The forester wanted to know from the Department if they could be issued. The Department wanted to know why they needed 40 pairs. But 13 men in the neighbouring forest had also got an issue and somebody in the Department could not subtract 13 from 40 and find the 27 requisitioned and needed—and, while the men were awaiting the boots, they had to do for themselves. They certainly could not afford to buy the boots they needed with the money they were getting.

The Minister says we are continuing this debate, no matter what happens. The fact is that we are continuing this debate in order to drive home to the Department— and to the Minister who, I am quite sure, will be prepared to pass it along to the Department and, therefore, it may not be necessary to do it again —that this is something that is years overdue. In 1919, the British Government introduced the Industrial Courts Act and those people in this country to whom we refer had access until 1946 to the industrial courts. In 1946, the Act was changed and those people were excluded as were employees of local authorities. The only reason I can think for their exclusion is as was said here earlier, in order to prevent them from getting anything like justice.

I have experience of going into various Government Departments in my role as a trade union official, after serving a demand for an improvement in wages and working conditions, and meeting very civil civil servants who were prepared to talk very civilly and discuss the case but, every time, they finished up by telling me that they would have the matter considered. I am suspicious of asking the Department of Finance to deal with it. I understand that, in every case, what happens is that the Department of Finance have to be asked if they are prepared to have the money sanctioned. Even if the recommendation comes from one of the Departments, the Department of Finance must decide whether or not the money can be provided and the result is that it is not provided. I understand that that is what is wrong with the sick pay scheme. If the Department of Lands had the right to deal with it, I believe the matter would have been attended to two years ago but the Department of Finance is involved.

It amazes me that the very people in the Department of Finance who are difficult about this matter enjoy, themselves, the benefits of sick pay, a shorter working week and a good decent wage. I cannot for the life of me understand how it is that people who are not themselves directly affected—as employers are—can be so niggardly. If we deal with the private employer, at least he has the merit of trying to save his own pocket. Whatever effort he is making not to increase wages is because he is trying to save his own pocket. When a group of people who are getting the money out of the same purse refuse to sanction benefits to their less well-off brethren, it is just not good enough. It is about time the matter were well aired, as it has been aired here today and yesterday. All we are asking the Minister is that he should not wait until the Industrial Relations Bill is introduced and goes through this House. He himself can introduce a short Bill in this House which will give just the right to go to the Labour Court to those workers and we shall solve the problems ourselves.

In almost the last speech he made in this House, the former Taoiseach said, in answer to an interruption from me, that he thought that these workers were long overdue the right to go to the Labour Court. He said he would have a special look at it. I am afraid he has not had time to do so. I know he is a very busy man since he left the Government but he might have asked his successors to ensure that the right would be given to the workers concerned. If the Minister does that, he will go down in the mind of those people as one person who has made an attempt to give them fair play, as a person who had the authority to give it and who has faced up to the situation.

Dr. Hillery

Might I clear a point of misunderstanding? It is the intention to provide that workers who have not access to conciliation and arbitration will have access to the Labour Court.

Mr. James Tully

All workers.

Dr. Hillery

Yes. There is no question of asking the Minister for Finance to decide on it. He will be asked to identify the workers—not, I hope, for an arbitration and conciliation scheme: it is only to be able to name them. You will be able to say who needs this service.

Mr. James Tully

I have a list of them. I could read it out quickly in ten seconds.

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy quoted something last night which might cause misunderstanding. The proposals were to give this access to the Labour Court for the categories.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister is attempting to sell something by giving a sweet along with it.

Dr. Hillery

You did not see it in the proposals. You saw everything else.

Mr. James Tully

No, it is not exactly that, but the Minister said he would introduce proposals which were not produced.

Dr. Hillery

It will be done. There is no question of delay.

Mr. James Tully

I hope it will not be like Frank Sherwin's motion which was agreed to but the persons concerned did not get the 5/-.

Question put and agreed to.