I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
What I would like to see achieved by this legislation, and by further legislation which may be developed in understanding with the people involved over the next few years, would be rules of behaviour to protect and preserve the worker's power to achieve and hold his due place in the community and at the same time to provide the framework within which the power of the workers in our system of industrial relations is kept safely in the hands of the workers themselves by giving them the capacity to vote on its use or its restraint by majority rule.
There is a convenience in dividing disputes into two broad categories. There are rights disputes developing from a worker's belief that there is interference with a right which he claims to have, being a right stemming from an agreement, a custom, a law or a practice. The other main body of disputes, interest disputes, are those arising out of claims for increased pay or better working conditions. In each case, the danger exists that the disputes can be brought to a test of strength. The State's concern is to provide machinery so that disputes can be resolved before developing into great tests of strength. This implies first of all an expectation by the State that the employer and worker would do their level best to find a solution before turning for outside help and then, when turning for outside help, would approach it on the basis of seeking a peaceful solution rather than winning a battle.
I am well aware that if somebody decides from the beginning to have a test of strength, whatever the machinery, there is little we can do about it in a free country, but be dragged along by such a person. Equally well if people set their expectations too high, and if the machinery does not give them what they want, they may, so to speak, reject the referee and then decide to go on to a test of strength even if they had not started out with that intention. Again our freedoms allow that to happen.
Apart from these considerations, I would say that in the case of rights in which discipline or dismissal may be involved, I believe that a quick examination by an independent person would prevent escalation and avoid many of the sudden stoppages to which such disputes may lead. Perhaps the House would be interested to know that while strikes due to rights disputes are quite numerous, about 80 per cent of the man days lost are lost because of disputes about wages and hours of employment, so that our main economic trouble and the main hardships imposed on workers in the community arise in the area of settlement of wages and incomes. There is an occasional suggestion that the removal of wages and incomes decisions from the area of dispute would be a solution. This would mean having a tight-knit system in which every wage, income, dividend, rent, professional fees, profits and so on, would be determined by some authority, as distinct from the present free system where wages and salaries are fixed by negotiation.
However, I should like to point out that such an authority would have to have extraordinary powers if it did not receive the support of a massive consensus and as well as that the individual acceptance in each case of the decisions it hands down as to what wage levels should be. We have experience already of recommendations of the Labour Court being rejected and I have no reason to believe that any other authority would have its decisions accepted. In the case of their nonacceptance, the freedom to strike and to place pickets and all the hardships and days lost and the economic setbacks would be the same as if an award at the free negotiating table were in dispute.
I do not, however, exclude the setting up of an independent body which would lay down firm guidelines and so support the negotiators and Labour Court as to make more acceptable to workers and management recommendations in wage and salary related to our economic potential. I accept what trade unionists have told me that in such a situation all incomes, not just wages alone, should be subject to the same scrutiny. I would add that there is nothing in my experience so far to suggest that decisions of such a body would be accepted in individual instances even if agreed to in principle by the trade union movement generally. However, we must be prepared to give every possible help in making wages and salaries less the subject of dispute than they are at present. For that reason, as I say, I do not exclude the setting up of an independent body.
In the meantime, we have to accept this fact: whatever method of determining wages and salaries we have— the strike weapon must be left with the worker so that he will not be in any way hindered in seeking his share. What we must attempt to do is to protect and preserve this strength of the worker and place it, if we can, more solidly within his power and out of the reach of haphazard pressure groups who would act without the authority of the majority of the workers. I would also propose to avoid any radical unacceptable change in procedures for industrial relations and I present now what I think are acceptable amendments to improve the procedures, to reduce delays and to suggest to those involved to get down to real meaningful negotiations before moving on to seek the help of the Labour Court.
I propose in the Industrial Relations Bill to introduce a new type of machinery for the settlement of certain kinds of disputes which should be of considerable benefit to workers. Quite a number of disputes develop about such things as discipline and dismissals and often these find their way to the Labour Court. I do not think that, even though at times there may be some matters of principle involved, the Labour Court is the right place for dealing with individual cases, but something else is needed to give a quick and authoritative opinion on this type of dispute. It is proposed to take power, therefore, to appoint one or more rights commissioners.
A commissioner will investigate privately and quickly a dispute which arises out of a right which a worker claims to have, being, as I say, a right stemming from an agreement, a custom or a practice. The commissioner can make this investigation at the request of either party to the dispute, unless the other party objects. If the other party does object, then the dispute would have to be dealt with in the way such disputes would be dealt with today. The parties to a dispute before the rights commissioner will be free to accept or reject the recommendation made by the commissioner. Either party may appeal the commissioner's recommendation to the Labour Court but only on the basis that the Court's decision on the appeal will be binding on the parties. The rights commissioner cannot hear a case which has been before the Labour Court and the Labour Court cannot hear a case which had been before a commissioner save, of course, by way of appeal.
I should like to draw attention to the proposal in section 6 of the Industrial Relations Bill which envisages an exsal tension of the scope of the duties of the conciliation officers, who will in future be known as industrial relations officers.
Deputies will be aware of the part played by these officers in preventing and settling disputes. The conciliation service was set up under the 1946 Act for the purpose of mediating in disputes. The officers of the service have succeeded in averting many stoppages of work; they have also succeeded, in certain cases, in getting the parties to negotiate better working arrangements and to establish long-term negotiating machinery through the operation of such bodies as joint industrial councils.
The service has had to be expanded considerably over the past few years and conferences are now being organised at the rate of nearly 1,000 conferences a year.
In the course of their work the officers of the service amass much valuable information. They see where good relations operate; and conversely they see the defects in procedures and practices which cause tensions and breakdowns in communications and which sometimes lead to stoppages of work.
I believe that the fund of experience accumulated by these officers, and the confidence and goodwill they enjoy among employers, managers, personnel officers and trade unions, should be used more extensively for the improvement of industrial relations.
I propose accordingly to ask the Labour Court to examine means by which the members of the service might make their knowledge and advice available to managements and trade unions in the interest of bringing about improved procedures in industries and services. It is on management that the main responsibility for establishing and maintaining satisfactory procedures rests and I would like to encourage managements to take advantage of this knowledge and advice, particularly in cases where defects are known to exist.
In 1966 draft proposals suggested that, in relation to the various conciliation and arbitration schemes which exist at present for employees in the Civil Service, the Local Government service and so on instead of having a number of different arbitrators for the different bodies, claims which could not be resolved by conciliation should be referred for determination by the Labour Court, the court, for this purpose, to be augmented by individuals drawn from a panel of persons with economic, social or other appropriate qualifications. This was proposed because of the multiplicity of arbitrators involved, who by applying different considerations to the cases brought before them, were handing down decisions which were producing discontent among other groups in the public service and generating an undesirable amount of leapfrogging as well. I felt that the Labour Court, with its fulltime and continuing responsibility in the field of industrial relations, could bring to bear upon these issues its much broader knowledge of the whole scene; and, while not necessarily aiming at uniformity in pay and conditions, I had hoped that, under such an arrangement, they could bring about a better relationship between the different groups in the public sector and between public and private employment.
I must say that I was disappointed that the unions and staff associations in the public sector objected so strongly to this proposal. Their objection, I think, was based mainly on the ground that they had no say in the selection of the chairman of the Labour Court, whereas, under the terms of their existing agreements, they had a say in the nomination of the chairman of their particular arbitration body. While I was disappointed at failing to get broad acceptance of this arrangement or of some variant of it, I have not entirely lost hope that, before the Bill is finally passed, we will be able to get the agreement of the staffs to an improvement on the compromise provision now included in section 9 of the Industrial Relations Bill. This compromise provision is to provide that two members of the Labour Court, one a workers' member and one an employers' member, will become members of each of the various arbitration bodies, and thereby let the body have the benefit of their experience from the Labour Court point of view.
I am providing in section 21 of the Industrial Relations Bill for the dissolution of the Electricity Supply Board manual workers and general employees tribunals. However successful these tribunals may have been in the beginning, it is clear now that they no longer serve their original intention which was, to use the words of the Act, to make a determination of a dispute. Being statutory tribunals they have introduced an element of rigidity which is not suitable to conditions today and by abolishing them I will be leaving the way open for the ESB to negotiate with its employees for whatever system of industrial relations procedures suits their particular conditions. I hope that the ESB and the unions will develop satisfactory procedures to solve the most of their problems. I would hope that the system would make it necessary for the parties to have really deep negotiations before bringing any problems forward for formal investigation by the Labour Court.
As I have said, in 1966 draft proposals for legislation were widely circulated among interested parties and I discussed them with employer and labour representatives, notably the Federated Union of Employers (FUE) and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). Some of the most important features of the 1966 proposals were severely criticised by the ICTU, whose spokesmen went so far as to say that, if certain of the proposals were proceeded with, trade unions would refuse to co-operate in the working of the legislation. Whatever about the merits of those particular proposals, it was clear that it would have been futile to go ahead with them in the light of the trade union reaction. As the need for some improvements were apparent, and in an anxiety to secure the widest possible degree of agreement between employer and worker interests, I set up two working parties, one with the FUE and one with the ICTU to examine the causes of industrial unrest and propose solutions.
A 1966 proposal was that the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, should be amended whereby the Labour Court would not investigate a trade dispute unless both or all parties asked it to act and undertook to accept the Court's decision, the penalties for refusal to accept to be, in the case of workers, withdrawal of the protection of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, for three months, and, in the case of an employer, an appropriate fine.
The ICTU vehemently opposed this proposal which they described as "a move to abolish the Labour Court and establish an arbitration body in its place". As they saw it, the proposal would mean that workers who wanted their case heard could not get a hearing from the Court unless they bound themselves beforehand, under penalty, to accept the Court's decision. The Congress have firmly stated that workers in unions affiliated to the Congress are not prepared to submit to this condition.
The formal reaction of the FUE was that the Labour Court should play, in the sphere of industrial relations, the role which the civil courts play in relation to civil affairs. The employers, while adhering to this viewpoint, indicated in subsequent consultations that if it could not be brought about the Court should continue to operate as at present.
The concept behind the proposal was to encourage the settlement of disputes as early on in the line of procedures as possible, and to enhance the status of the Labour Court by making it more remote and by exacting, so to speak, a "price" for its services. If the parties to a dispute knew that the ultimate piece of machinery would be available to them only on the condition that they would undertake to accept the findings, it was hoped that the parties would make greater efforts to resolve the dispute between themselves or, failing that, by invoking the concilation service of the Labour Court. What could not be envisaged was the extent, if any, to which the parties would use the court on the basis proposed in 1966; indeed the possibility that the court would not be used at all could not be ruled out. If, as foreshadowed by the Congress reaction, parties to industrial disputes simply refused to use the Labour Court, the situation would then be that the State had provided a court which would rarely, if ever, be "in session" and the members of which could do no more than stand by while public representatives and other prominent citizens tried to settle disputes which were unresolved at conciliation level.
Although the FUE adhere to the view that the Labour Court should play a similar role to that of a civil court the present position is that both workers and employers want the Labour Court to be freely available to help them resolve their disputes. Essentially the parties themselves want to continue to be free to settle their own disputes, with, if they wish to ask for it, the help of the conciliation service of the Labour Court, or of the court itself. They do not want imposed settlements and, in any event, this procedure could not be forced on them.
Experience suggests that State-sponsored procedures aimed at prompting harmony in industrial relations cannot be successfully operated if they have built into them the opposition of the parties concerned; and no good would be achieved by giving the parties machinery which they do not want and would not use. It is not proposed, therefore, to make any fundamental change in the role of the court, but rather to make such changes as will make the court as it is a more effective instrument in promoting industrial peace. Power is being taken to appoint, if necessary, extra members to the Labour Court so that it can operate in three divisions instead of two as at present, and to have available a fulltime as well as a part-time deputy chairman. Pensions will be provided for members of the Labour Court. I feel, however, that although I now propose to leave the court as it is there should be, at least, some moral commitment on the parties who want a hearing and I propose that normally the court will not investigate a dispute unless, following failure to settle at conciliation level, there is a request for an investigation from the parties. Too frequently, unions at present let the employer ask for the hearing—or let the court itself take the initiative— and then, if complaint is made later about rejection of the court's award, they say, in defence, that they did not ask for a hearing but were "brought" or "dragged" before the court.
The Industrial Relations Act, 1946, provides that, when the Labour Court investigates a dispute, is shall make a recommendation as to how it thinks the dispute should be settled. From time to time the court finds itself in the position where it considers that the parties should continue or resume discussions among themselves and it does not make a formal recommendation as to how the disputes should be settled. While it may be argued that such a step by the court could be considered as the making of a statutory recommendation that the dispute could best be settled by further talks, I consider that the matter should be removed from the realm of doubt.
Accordingly, I propose that the 1946 Act should be amended to provide that the court may make a recommendation instead of that it shall do so. It will be provided, however, that (a) if workers or a trade union ask the court to investigate a dispute and agree beforehand—as a moral commitment—to accept the recommendation, or (b) if the parties to a conciliation conference agree upon a limited issue on which they wish to have the court's recommendation, and agree in advance to accept the court's ruling, there will be an obligation on the court to investigate—in private session—on a priority basis, and make a recommendation.
The Industrial Relations Act, 1946, provides that the Labour Court may hold any sitting or part of a sitting in private. I had proposed in 1966 that in future the proceedings of the court would normally be in private unless the court was of opinion that, in the public interest, a particular case should be heard in public. Arguments can be advanced for and against both public and private hearings. In the case of public hearings there is a tendency for the parties to start afresh and cover ground already covered at conciliation level. There is also a temptation for spokesmen at public hearings to strike "party line" attitudes for publicity purposes. Against private hearings, it can be argued that the public should know what is going on and that industrial disputes which affect the public should not be resolved behind closed doors.
I would like to give the parties themselves a say in this matter and I now propose that the investigation of a trade dispute by the court will be in private but that the court may, if a party to a dispute requests, decide to hold a hearing in public. Even in that case the court may hold any part of a sitting in private in order to meet the situation in which information was being submitted which the court considered was confidential to the parties concerned.
Section 68 (1) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, imposes on the Labour Court, when making a recommendation, the obligation to take into account a number of considerations which can contradict one another. I propose, therefore, that section 68 (1) should be amended to read as follows:
The court, having investigated a trade dispute, may make a recommendation setting forth its opinion on the terms on which it should be settled.
The court will be given a new function in relation to rules of fair employment. It is intended that the Labour Court should encourage representative groups of workers and employers in various industries to work out and agree upon the basic conditions of good employment for workers covering such things as notice, discipline, dismissals, etc. Where these are agreed upon, they would be converted into statutory rules by the Labour Court and can then be legally enforced. It is hoped by this method to afford to workers some better certainty and clarity as to their rights in this area, that is those facets of employment not immediately concerned with the direct wage element.
There are some tidying up features such as making it clear that the Labour Court can give an interpretation of an employment agreement if asked to do so by the parties to the agreement; giving employers the right to complain to the court about noncompliance with the terms of a registered employment agreement; giving the Minister's inspectors power to check on compliance with registered agreement in the same way as they check on agreement in employment regulation orders and reducing from 30 to 21 days the period for making representations about the terms of proposed employment regulation orders.
At present, workers employed by or under the State have not access to the Labour Court. Many of the persons in this category are, of course, included in the various public service arbitration boards but there are some like forestry workers who have neither the arbitration boards nor access to the Labour Court. It is proposed to correct this by giving the State employees access to the Labour Court if they are not covered by conciliation and arbitration schemes.
Moving on to my proposed amendments to the trade union law, I should like to say again that this evolved out of four years of consideration, including over a year of discussions with the trade union movement representatives and the representatives of employers. The purpose is to put into the hands of the majority of workers in any one situation the decision to use the weapons of strike and picketing. There is no attempt whatever to impose control on this from outside the trade union movement.
Since my approach to this legislation has been to avoid taking powers for the Government which I feel should normally rest with a healthy trade union movement, I would like to ask individual members and Congress to take this opportunity of working for the success of this approach.
If I found them committed to work and drive for the success of legislation which leaves the power with the unions then I would undertake to move in this House for the repeal of the Electricity (Special Provisions) Act, 1966, the provisions of which are not in accord with such an approach.
I think first of all we will have to accept that every individual cannot get everything he wants out of every situation. Therefore, the proposals in this legislation are proposals which will give the majority in any one situation the decisive voice in the action to be taken. At the same time, there is nothing in the proposals to damage the rights of smaller groups. It merely gives the authority to the majority, in cases where the whole group is to be made participate in any particular dispute or battle.
I would stress from the beginning the desirability of comprehensive agreements and while we cannot demand these by law, we can make it easier for them to be negotiated.
An important feature of the Trade Union Bill is that relating to group negotiation licences. This proposal has already had a fair amount of publicity in trade union circles and may have met with some opposition. There is nothing compulsory whatsoever in it. It is entirely up to the workers concerned to decide if they want it.
Clearly the aim of both workers and employers is to secure progress with stability. It must be in the interests of both to know that for a period ahead, there will be no unrest, but at the same time agreed progression according as productivity increases. This kind of situation can best come about by the negotiation of comprehensive agreements covering a fixed period of time. Fully comprehensive agreements are difficult to negotiate at any time, but they are made extraordinarily difficult where there are a number of unions catering for the same workers in the same trade or industry. We have all seen the effects of interunion rivalry and how one union may want to hold out and demonstrate its militancy and prevent the working out of a settlement which is acceptable to the majority. The group negotiation licence is designed to cope with that situation, that is if, and I repeat if, the workers want to use the group facilities. Here I must emphasise that the majority of the workers in an industry must want to operate a group system before the provisions of the Bill relating to the group have any effect. The workers cannot be compelled by anybody to form a group if they do not want to do so. If a group is formed and it represents a majority of the workers in an industry, and if it has known rules for its conduct, for its method of negotiation, for holding ballots and for the interpretation of ballot results, an element of certainty that is missing at present would be brought into the picture and an employer would be encouraged in such circumstances to negotiate firm progressive agreements with his employees and to work out long-term commitments and reduce to writing the employees' rights in such matters as discipline and dismissal etc., things which today are often left vague.
Today, the worker in good employment, who has entered into many commitments, can find himself on strike on an issue with which he has no concern and, indeed, no voice. He is looking for protection against the liability of being thrown out of employment by other people's rash actions. He would have some measure of protection through a properly constituted group negotiating procedure, since through his union he would have a voice in the decision taken whether to go on strike or not. This is not an antistrike provision: if there is a decision of the group to go on strike, then the strike takes place with all the protection of the law.
This is essentially an enabling provision. It is put there in the hope that the workers can see for themselves the advantages for them in such a system, and in the hope that they will embrace it and use it.
I know that today under the encouragement of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions many unions have come together and formed groups for the better conduct of their negotiations with their employer. These groups work unevenly and are effective only for as long as all unions concerned remain together. In particular these groups have no way of protecting themselves against a union which wants to break out of the group and go it alone, often against the wishes and interests of the others still in the group. I would hope that the unions who wish to work in groups, who see the advantages for their future employment in operating through groups, would see the proposal in the Bill for what it is, namely, a method being offered to them whereby they can have that little bit of authority which they lack at present to see that their proceedings are orderly, have some greater certainty than they have at present about such things as balloting, announcing results of ballot and deciding upon the interpretation of the ballot. Trade unions try to operate under democratic principles. This scheme would give them a better opportunity of seeing that democracy can work.
There could be a tie in here too between the group negotiating licences and the rights commissioners. One of my main hopes for the group negotiating licence idea, if it took on, would be the negotiation of really comprehensive agreements, long standing agreements relating to the various facets of an employee's status within the industry. Too many of the agreements which we have today are open-ended affairs designed merely to patch up a dispute arising out of a wage claim. I could picture that there would be a clause in these negotiated agreements that disputes on rights issues or the interpretation of the agreement itself would be determined by a rights commissioner. Indeed, there are already in existence a number of agreements where provision is made for interpretation by the Labour Court.
For years there has been debate on the principles which ought to govern the issue of negotiating licences generally. Where can you draw the line between the rights of persons to form associations on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the disruptive effects which can be caused by giving recognition to each and every splinter group that wants to break away from the main stream. There is general agreement that we already have too many separate unions in this country and many voices are heard deploring attempts at further splintering. What is to be done about it? The trade unions do not want to give to a Minister or other public authority the power of deciding who should get a licence, nor are they prepared to take upon themselves the responsibility for such a decision. Therefore, what I propose is that in future, before a negotiation licence is granted, it must be demonstrated that there is reasonable stability in the new group, that it is a sizeable group, and that it has a serious interest and is not just a group formed out of temporary annoyance with an existing association. To get a licence in future, a newly formed union must have not fewer than 500 members. It must maintain a minimum deposit of £5,000 with the High Court, and it must maintain both these provisions for at least 18 months before it will be entitled to the negotiating licence.
To me it is extraordinary that there can still be occasions with some unions where the serious decision to call a strike can be determined by a show of hands in the hall. It is expecting too much of human nature to say that the not so articulate in such circumstances should have the courage to outface the bullying few at a gathering like that. I believe that the majority of workers do not want the continuation of that system. They do want, and demand the right, to have a voice in the decision on whether or not to go on strike. They should be able to express this opinion under conditions which do not amount to intimidation. I am, therefore, providing that, whether it is in the rule book of a union at present or not, it shall be deemed to be a rule of every union in future, that before a strike notice is served, the majority of the members in the union entitled to vote, must by secret ballot approve of serving the strike notice; but that, notwithstanding such approval, the executive committee or other controlling authority of a trade union may, at its discretion, decide not to serve the strike notice. If a union should serve a strike notice without holding a proper secret ballot, then it would be breaking union rules and it is up to the members of the union who are aggrieved by this action to apply the remedies which they have under union rules.
It has been law since 1941, under section 11 of the Trade Union Act, 1941, that the protections afforded to trade unions by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 are reserved to registered trade unions who are holding negotiating licences. It could be read into that section that the protection extends not only to the trade union but also to any of its members whether or not they are acting under union authority or unofficially. It is proposed to remove this ambiguity and make it clear that the protection of the 1906 Act is intended to extend only to the trade union and its members when they are acting under the trade union authority and within the union rules. In any event it would seem to me to be entirely illogical that a right which by the 1941 Act was intended to be reserved to a trade union acting under its full authority should be extended to members of that union who are acting contrary to the wishes and rules of their union.
I am proposing another small change in relation to the law on picketing. The Trade Disputes Act, 1906 as at present worded would allow pickets to be placed on an employer's private dwelling house. Whatever may have been the need for such a provision in 1906 I think that it has no place in today's scene and I am providing that the protection of picketing will no longer extend to an employer's private house unless it is quite clear that he is attempting to transfer his business to his house and carry it on from there.
It has been held in the courts that the Trade Disputes Act protection is confined to persons employed in what is described as "trade or industry". This artificial distinction has operated to the disadvantage of certain categories of workers and it is being made clear in the Trade Union Bill that the protection extends to employed persons generally who are members of trade unions with negotiating licences.
I should like to see a more positive move towards the amalgamation of unions and I am not alone in this wish. I know that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for many years has been trying its best to encourage a move along these lines but with very, very limited success. The move must come from the unions themselves, but I am anxious to give what help I can. In this Bill I am seeking authority to give financial assistance to the trade unions which decide to amalgamate; to help towards defraying the exceptional expenses of the process of amalgamation. That, in itself, may not be enough and, indeed, it may be desirable to contemplate help from the legislature as a separate issue. What I have in mind would be such legislation as the unions would find necessary to ease them over the present legal obstacles to amalgamation. Reverting for a moment to the group negotiating licences one incidental benefit from that idea, if it is taken up, could be that from their association together in working groups the unions might be encouraged to form some types of more permanent federation leading ultimately to amalgamation.
I call on the members of the trade unions to solve this problem although I appreciate how difficult it is for any body of people with a tradition and an identity to lose this identity. Indeed, I have evidence that it is no easier for employers' bodies to do it or for political parties for that matter. The way our economy shapes in the future could depend to a large extent on a reduction in the number of unions or on an amalgamation or rationalisation of their activities.
The review of the law on trade unions and on industrial relations has been going on for a long time and a great variety of ideas and propositions have been examined. There is an extraordinary sensitiveness and suspicion about Government action in these areas. I have, indeed, been accused of preparing anti-trade union law. This simply is not correct. Nearly everybody will say that our system of industrial relations is not good and will urge the Government "to do something about it." The Government want to do something about it but do not want to transfer to themselves all the responsibilities and anxieties for good industrial relations which must rest primarily with employers and workers.
The search has been, therefore, to identify what is wrong at present and to see if agreement can be reached on the remedies. Some union spokesmen will say as they have often said before: "We know what is wrong with industrial relations. We know where the trouble lies, we are in the best position to know what to do. Leave it to us and we will cure it in our own way." I would, indeed, be happy to leave it to them to find a cure if I thought that by their own unaided efforts they could produce results but recent happenings do not encourage one to believe that the results which not only the trade union movement but the community as a whole desire can come without the aid of legislation. I would emphasise that I do not claim that legislation alone can produce an answer. The answer must come from the disposition of those concerned in industrial relations to improve them but I do think that legislation has a part to play here. I believe that the majority of trade unionists, while wanting to retain their basic freedoms, want as well to live in a stable society where they have for their support a strong trade union movement which will assure them of orderly progression.
There are, however, a number in a small minority who are living in the past and who are relying upon trade union ideas and attitudes which may have been appropriate for an age which is now past. They are fearful of change and see in every suggestion which is put to them "the thin edge of the wedge" by which the Government will gradually take over control of the unions or take away their authority. I do not know how they can be reassured that that is not the intention or anybody's intention. Maybe they can be reassured by their more forward thinking brethren and encouraged to give a fair trial to the ideas being advanced.
It is because of these fears that I suggest we should hasten slowly but I do not think that we should wait another 20 years before suggesting further changes. I think we should contemplate making changes as they occur to us and as they can be agreed and accepted as good ideas, and I for one would be happy to see the Minister for Labour coming to this House, even rather frequently, with Bills taking a step at a time along the road to progress and reform.
I have outlined my proposals for improving the situation in this complex field of industrial relations and trade union organisation. It is clear, I think, to all Deputies that in this area real and lasting improvements cannot be effected by legislation. Rather is the purpose of legislation to facilitate those directly concerned to work the system that has been evolved here in the smoothest way practicable.
However, I must ask the House to endorse my view that, unless the freedom given to employers and trade unions is matched with a sense of responsibility, that freedom is in danger of being abused—as, indeed, it has been in the past—with damaging, and sometimes cruel, consequences for many of our people and for the country as a whole.
Much thought, time and effort has gone into the building up of institutions and procedures and these have been made freely available to those wishing to use them.
While there could never be a legal compulsion on any party to use any or all of these procedures, I feel strongly that there ought to be a very strong moral obligation to use the disputesettling machinery before thought is given to ordering strikes, lockouts or pickets.
During the past few weeks many people have asked me why these procedures were not used before action to precipitate a massive shut down of industry was taken. No convincing answer can be given.
Further, I should like to put it to employers and workers alike that, having used all the available machinery for negotiation and conciliation and being still unable to resolve their differences, they should put their case to the Labour Court—a body equally representative of employers and workers with an independent chairman —and they should accept the advice of that body for the settlement of the particular dispute.
To me and to many who have been in touch with me in recent weeks, this sounds a fair and reasonable proposition.
I now put it publicly, in Dáil Éireann, to the employers and workers of Ireland and I invite them to say whether it is acceptable or not.
If any interest cannot accept this, unconditionally, I would like to know what changes in our arrangements would make it acceptable to them, even for a trial period of, say, two or three years.
