asked the Minister for Labour the plans that are being prepared in his Department for the introduction of legislation on worker participation in management; and the form this participation will take.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Participation in Management.
44.
As I stated in reply to a similar question on 6th March, 1975, the Government are committed to the introduction of worker participation in State enterprises and I will be putting my proposals before the Government in this connection shortly.
Did I hear the Minister say the Government were committed to its introduction in State Departments? Has he carried out any exploration or had any consultations with regard to the expansion of that to private industry or to certain aspects of private industry?
The employer-labour conference have already had a worker group on the idea of work councils throughout private industry but so far as I am aware they have not considered this aspect of it. I think the way to proceed here is to see the actual proposals we have in mind in operation for a period before we decide on further expansion and that is really what we are after here.
Is the Minister's direction towards State boards rather than decision-making management levels within State boards?
There is a big debate going on in Europe between the two-tier system and the single board system. We believe that in our circumstances the single board system and election to it is more suitable and, indeed, many people in Europe agree with us.
Has the Minister encouraged any trade union education of workers with this end in view?
This is an elaboration of the question.
There are not any trade union education facilities available in my Department. We provide the finances for a good deal of trade union education and in their services they run courses for such instruction for their representatives and probably will do more in the future as soon as we have our own plans in operation.