I move amendment No. 17c:
In subsection (3), page 9, lines 34 and 35, to delete "from time to time determines" and substitute "negotiates from time to time with the organisations which, in the opinion of the Minister, are representative of officers and servants employed in the functional area of a health board or are representative of a particular grade or category on a national basis".
We on this side of the House regard this amendment as being of major importance in the health services. It opens up the whole question of what might be called the Victorian administrative structure of our health services. It was amazing to me, coming from a trade union setting into this House, to find written into legislation that the remuneration and the allowances of workers employed in the health services are determined without any reference to the trade union organisations. This amendment is designed to give recognition to the trade unions and the staff organisations which are already in existence in the health services.
I would strenuously object to any chief executive officer, appointed by a health board, being given unilateral right to determine the remuneration and allowances of officers and staff even where he may have to obtain Departmental sanctions. In order to democratise our health services it is essential that recognition of trade unions be written into legislation. There are 15 trade union organisations representing many thousands of workers employed by the health authorities throughout the country, and these unions negotiate and resolve a whole range of grievances, disputes and conditions of employment directly with the senior executive officers of these authorities day in and day out in all areas of the health services. All we are asking here is the insertion of the reality of industrial collective bargaining in the health services.
There is a good deal of authoritarian hangover in our health services, in our hospitals, in our dispensary administrative system, in our ambulance system and in the system of running local authority health clerical and administrative structures themselves, with very little internal democracy and this is what we want to see brought about. We are proposing this amendment to give recognition to trade union organisations and we seek the support of this House for it. We ask for the deletion of the words "from time to time determines" and the substitution of the words
negotiates from time to time with the organisations which, in the opinion of the Minister, are representative of officers and servants employed in the functional area of a health board or are representative of a particular grade or category on a national basis.
I feel somewhat upset that one should have to come into the House and plead for trade union recognition. Frankly, I am not interested in the Minister saying that it is there already, that they can have it, that they can go into the Department any time they like, meet an executive officer and that he will direct the executive officer to meet the trade unions direct and negotiate rates of pay with, say, an ambulance driver, subject to his sanction. My argument is that there must be negotiation recognised by the State. This is, perhaps, an innovation which the Minister himself, with his very considerable interest in joint consultation, which is quite separate from trade union recognition, and his general interest when Minister for Transport and Power in trade union relations, would find well worthy of his consideration.
