I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
There were a number of important issues contending for this first ever allocation of Private Members' time to The Workers' Party. The reason we resolved to progress our Bill, the Protection of Part-time Workers (Employment) (No. 2) Bill, 1989, is that we recognised that this is an area of widespread exploitation and abuse of employment practices and the ongoing failure to introduce legislation to protect part-time workers is tantamount to condoning their exploitation.
On 2 November 1989 the Minister for Labour told me in reply to a parliamentary question that there were 72,000 part-time workers, in the sense defined in this Bill, within the workforce. He said more than 60 per cent of these were women although in his definitive study for the Department and the IPC, Mr. John Blackwell, concluded that for 1987, 72 per cent of all regular part-time workers were female. The point is that the number of part-time workers in the labour force has almost doubled in the last 10 years and the current ICTU estimate is that there are 100,000 regular and occasional part-time workers. The vast majority of these have no protection against unfair dismissal or redundancy and have no entitlements to holidays, maternity leave or minimum notice. Frequently they endure poor working conditions, lack of job security, are afraid to join trade unions and suffer low pay — sometimes to the point of scandalous exploitation.
On this dimension of low pay, in the course of an address to the joint ICTU-Combat Poverty Agency Conference in December 1989, ITGWU economist Rosheen Callendar commented:
One of the main effects of the continuing exclusion of part-time workers from the scope of most existing protective legislation (unfair dismissals, redundancy, insolvency, etc.) as well as from most social insurance cover, is to dramatically reduce the total value of their work. In the vast majority of cases, the rewards for part-time working are grossly disproportinate to the rewards for full-time working and discrepancy can in no way be accounted for solely by the differences in hours worked.
Usually, even when hourly rates of pay are the same for full-time and part-time workers, the latter's conditions of employment are inferior: they tend to be excluded from pensions cover, various kinds of paid and unpaid leave, valuable fringe benefits, access to training and promotion and so on. Add to these factors the less immediate, long-term effects of their exclusion from PRSI and most employment legislation and you get a "total job package" which is considerably less valuable than their actual working hours would tend to imply.
Also on 2 November 1989 the Minister for Labour seemed to indicate that he accepted these facts and said he hoped "to have a Bill ready for introduction to the Oireachtas in the new year".
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Independent on 4 February this year the Minister promised to “wage war on employers who exploit part-time workers” and noted that “even highly reputable companies are taking advantage of the current unprotected position of those who don't work a full day”. I acknowledge that this represents a significant step forward for the same Minister who, as recently as 30 April 1987 completely espoused the employers' line when he told my party colleague, Deputy Proinsias De Rossa, that “it would not be possible to bring more part-time workers into the protection of the legislation governing dismissals and redundancy payments”.
Let me give one example to illustrate the reasons part-time workers require the protection of this legislation. I have a letter here from a part-time worker who first gives me her name and then goes on to say:
I am 19 years old and I am a low paid part-time worker. I started my career as a part-time worker at 15 years of age in a restaurant in one of Dublin's leading stores south of the Liffey. I worked a nine hour day on Saturdays and on holidays from school for which I was paid a pittance. I had no control over the work which was expected of me and I don't know what I was employed as. Was I a waitress? Was I a cleaner? Was I a porter? Was I a cashier? Was I a cook's help or was I all these things for just £15 a week? After a year and a half's work the restaurant closed down. I was given absolutely no notice, just my day's pay. When I left the store that evening I had no social welfare cover, no job prospects and no come back, nothing.
I have since worked in two major establishments, one a leading bakery with a chain of restaurants and the other a restaurant in another big department store north of the Liffey. These jobs were no different to the one that gave me my first taste of part-time work in catering, no job security, no social security, no job description and low pay.
One other thing they all had in common was that they all started by telling me the same two things, "at any stage of your employment we can let you go and because you work part-time you have no right to ask for an explanation; being a part-time worker you will have no need to join a trade union, if you have any problems you can always come up and have a chat with us about them".
There were plenty of problems but there was no time to chat about them. This experience is typical of what a part-time worker in this catering industry can expect. You just have to look down along O'Connell Street where we are surrounded by fast food joints. Many of these places subject their workers to disgraceful conditions. They give them no staff facilities and for their days slog they get £1-odd per hour. Yesterday I inquired about a vacancy on O'Connell Street and was offered £1.70 per hour. It must be made clear that neither I nor any other part-time workers choose to work under these conditions. Economic necessity forces us to do it.
The employers' line in response to that, when dressed up by the FIE, is that "the great benefit of part-time work is its flexibility" and then they threaten that any changes in national legislation which inhibit flexibility would have extensive and lasting negative effects by which is meant that such changes would adversely impact on job creation.
The General Secretary of the ICTU, Mr. Peter Cassells, at the summer conference on this issue, opened by the Minister for Labour, made clear that he did not accept that extending labour legislation and social insurance cover to part-time workers would inhibit job creation. To underline his point he invoked the Department of Labour's own survey of August 1986 on employers' perceptions of the effect of labour legislation which showed that less than 1 per cent of respondent firms raised any issue related to the area of labour legislation. In his study John Blackwell agrees with this and calls this factor, "hardly a major influence". Of course, those countries in Europe with the best track record in job creation such as Germany and Sweden are also the countries most heavily regulated with regard to job creation. Indeed, it is instructive that it was the countries with the highest proportion of part-time employment — Britain and Denmark — that buried the 1982 Draft Directive on Voluntary Part-time Work as published by the European Commission.
If the Minister has a copy of that Draft Directive to hand he will note that The Workers' Party Bill draws heavily on it for definitions and interpretation and stays as close as possible to the definitions in the existing labour legislation to which we have referred.
In Part I we deal with the short title and provide that the provisions of the Bill should come into operation not less than six months from the date of enactment. On the question of interpretation each of the terms stays as close as possible to the definitions in the Acts that will require to be amended if the Bill is passed. Part II contains the specific provisions to afford part-time workers equal treatment on a pro rata basis with their full-time colleagues. The final section contains a provision for disputes arising as a result of entitlements under the Bill.
The major study in this area was carried out by John Blackwell and it showed that in 1987, of 1,093,000 persons in regular employment, 65,600 had a part-time job. Since 1984 the number of regular jobs had fallen from 771,400 to 736,100; in the case of men with part-time regular jobs the number increased from 14,800 to 18,400. In the case of females over the same period the number of regular jobs has gone up from 344,300 thousand to 356,900, most of this comprising an increase in part-time regular jobs, from 39,100 to 47,200. In other words, the number of males at regular work is declining but part-timers are increasing and almost all the increase in women is due to the part-time phenomenon. So much for the economic miracle.
Blackwell found that half of part-time workers are found in the group consisting of distributive trades, insurance, finance and business services. By contrast transportable goods industries account for only 10 per cent supporting the OECD trend that mass production and capital-intensive industries employ a lower than average proportion of part-time workers. Part-time working, Blackwell found to be "almost non-existent in the public sector, in the security area and in many Government Departments" even where private contractors have increasingly been hired for cleaning work. If part-time workers are classified by occupation, he found that four occupations account for the bulk of part-time workers: service workers, including catering and cleaning occupations, account for 25 per cent of all part-time work; agricultural workers for 19 per cent; commerce, insurance and finance workers, who include shop assistants and bar staffs, for 16 per cent of all part-time work, and professional and technical for 16 per cent of the total.
Although he acknowledges that between 1977 and 1987 the proportion of all employment in services increased from 48 per cent to 57 per cent, Blackwell concludes that, on balance, he does not find "persuasive the argument that a great deal of the rise in part-time working can be explained by the shift to services sector activity".
Some of the increase in part-time working has reflected the demand on the part of employers. Some has mirrored an increase in labour force participation. Some of that increase in the labour force has consisted of people who — at least, for the moment — only wish to work part-time. On this point, the labour force participation rates of married women in Ireland are currently well below those of other European countries. There is a potential labour force which is at the moment hidden in part by the combined effects of attitudes in society and the discouragement due to the high unemployment and emigration rates.
One does not need the evidence of available research to conclude that it is the large gap between the total value, hour for hour, of part-time and full-time work that attracts employers to defending the status quo. Despite the increase in part-time work in recent years it is still the least preferred option — availed of mainly because of the lack of full-time opportunities.
I believe that employers are being short-sighted. Unless part-time work is fairly rewarded, in proportion to full-time working, in all respects — I must emphasise that — its potential economic and social value will not be realised, either by employers or employees. I would argue that if the FIE were to co-operate in placing part-time work on a truly equal footing it could open up many interesting and mutually advantageous possibilities in the future.
One of the major areas of discrimination against part-time workers is their eligibility for social insurance cover. The majority of people who work for less than 18 hours per week are considered to be part-time workers for social insurance purposes. Many part-time workers are not allowed to be in the full PRSI — class A, therefore, they are not entitled to employment benefit, disability benefit and other social insurance payments. This discriminates against women because the large majority of part-time workers are women.
In a recent case the Court of Justice of the European Communities has held that a rule which discriminates against part-time workers, where such a measure affects a much larger number of women than men, is in breach of the EC directive on equal treatment for men and women in social welfare unless it can be justified on grounds unrelated to sex. It would, therefore, appear likely that the exclusion of part-time workers from full insurance cover by the Department of Social Welfare is in breach of the directive since this affects far more women than men and since it is difficult to see what objective grounds could be advanced by the Department to justify this blanket exclusion.
The recent budget announcement and the provisions in the Social Welfare Bill introduced by the Minister for Social Welfare basically provide that workers' gross earnings which are at or below £60 per week will be exempt from their share of the PRSI contribution from 6 April 1990. Therefore, part-time workers whose gross earnings are £60 or less per week if reclassified by the scope section, in the light of the European case, would be fully insured for all benefits and would not have to pay any additional contributions. I am quite satisfied that the measures proposed in the Social Welfare Bill do not obviate the likelihood of a challenge in this country. In Ireland the vast majority of part-time workers, working less than 18 hours per week, only have class J insurance if, indeed, they have that at all, and this only covers them for health benefits and occupational injuries. The only exceptions are where people work less than 18 hours per week but can establish that their part-time employment is not "of a subsidiary nature" or of "inconsiderable extent". Since this is normally the case only where a person's hourly earnings are well above average and constitute the person's only or major means of support, it is rare for women workers to work less than 18 hours per week and be insured at the full class A rate. There is an entire major category of part-time workers for which there are major implications for Ireland.
In the Ruzius v. Willbrink decision the Dutch Government was found to be in breach of article 4.1 of the EC directive 79.7. This relates to a provision whereby part-timers were paid lower social welfare benefits when suffering from incapacity for work and was found to be indirectly discriminatory as more women than men were affected and was not "objectively justified". This would seem to have very specific implications for the situation in Ireland and in this context the German case, which was decided only last week, of Rinner v. Kuhn similarly will have implications here in terms of the minimum notice, unfair dismissals and Holidays (Employees) Act.
I would also like to refer to the report prepared for the National Pensions Board entitled Changing Employment Patterns in Ireland — Recent Trends and Future Prospects (1989), prepared by Donal Dinneen which concludes that:
Employment has been declining, unemployment rising and aggregate output increasing in recent years. Hence fewer people are required to provide the needs of the market place. The spectre of jobless growth for the next few years, especially in manufacturing, looms large.
He goes on to make the following projections:
Growth in the relative importance of part-time employment as women increase their participation in the labour force and services employment expands; limited overall employment opportunities to slow down the expansion of female participation rates so that part-time employment is unlikely to expand to more than 10 per cent of the total at work outside agriculture. Total atypical employment forms to account for between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of the total at work, perhaps growing towards the upper figure.
Dinneen records that these projections are based on a slowly growing total employment level and concludes that:
... if employment grows more rapidly the recent UK experience may be replicated, where most of the increased employment was part time. Based on international comparisons this is the one typical employment form which has most potential to grow rapidly in Ireland.
Therefore regular part-time workers are likely to expand to about 10 per cent of the total at work by about 1996 and I think the Minister for Labour is on record as accepting this likely trend. The current legislation is not neutral but actually encourages employers to convert full-time jobs to part-time jobs. The FIE is being less than honest when opposing the extension of protective legislation because they said:
Part-time work is an important element in labour market flexibility... which in turn is considered essential to ensure competitiveness and to maintain employment.
After the success of the Programme for National Recovery in securing unprecedented wage restraint, it would be manifestly absurd to continue bleating about wage costs in the Irish economy damaging competitiveness. Nonetheless this resistance to equal treatment for part-time workers is merely a continuation of the “competitiveness chorus” of the seventies by employers because part-time workers are bluntly a source of cheap labour. They can reorganise their work schedules at will, hire and fire with impunity and are liable to minimum indirect costs. The experience shows that “flexibility” can too easily become for many employers, synonymous with exploitation and expendability.
Flexibility can and should be preserved and can be mutually advantageous to employer and employee alike provided that part-time workers are fairly rewarded and properly protected. Indeed the FUE — they are now the FIE, the Federation of Irish Employers——