Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Feb 1991

Vol. 405 No. 8

Worker Protection (Regular Part-Time Employees) Bill, 1990: Second Stage.

Minister for Labour (Mr. B. Ahern)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that part-time workers who are normally expected to work for at least eight hours a week for an employer and have completed 13 weeks continuous service with the employer, will enjoy the same protection under labour legislation as full-time workers. By "labour legislation" I mean the Redundancy Payments Acts, 1967 to 1990, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, the Worker Participation (State Enterprises) Acts, 1977 and 1988, the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, the Maternity Protection of Employees Act, 1981, the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Acts, 1984 and 1990, and the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973. I am accordingly in this short Bill amending seven separate sets of enactments.

It is as well for me to emphasise at the very outset that all workers including part-time workers are already covered by labour legislation which deals with occupational safety and health, employment equality and the payment of wages. Their exclusion from the Acts which I mention is the result of the weekly hours threshold of 18 hours contained in those Acts or in the case of the Holidays Act, a threshold of 120 hours a month or 1,400 hours a year. By shifting the threshold from 18 to eight hours I achieved the dual goal of bringing the very great majority of the unprotected part-time workforce within the protection of the law and, at the same time, of moving the threshold to a point so low that there will be little incentive for employees to create new contracts below that threshold, as has happened in the past.

This is the third occasion in about two years on which we are having a major discussion in this House on part-time workers. It was quite clear to me on the last two occasions that there was considerable concern that such workers were treated differently from full-time workers, particularly under labour law. In the interim, I concluded my discussions with both sides of industry and with other interests and was able to put my proposals before this House on 18 December last. I am pleased at the initial reception which they have received. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions have welcomed the publication of the Bill and have accepted that it is broadly in line with the Congress demand for equal rights for part-time workers. I look forward to a constructive debate on the proposals, and eventually their passage by the Oireachtas.

Many Deputies who participated in the previous discussions on the protection of part-time workers emphasised the need to move beyond labour law and to comprehend also the treatment of part-time workers under social security. It was never the intention of the Government to deal with both matters in the same Bill: that would be a recipe for confusion. The Minister for Social Welfare has, in recent days, abolished the 18 hours' threshold which hitherto applied and provided social security cover to all employees earning £40 or more per week. In this way many part-time workers, for the first time, will be entitled to claim weekly payments from the Department of Social Welfare because of illness, unemployment or maternity.

By way of introduction I would like to focus on four main themes: the extent and the nature of the growth of part-time work; the characteristics of part-time workers including the important gender dimension; the present situation of part-time workers under labour legislation and the need to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the real needs of firms which require greater flexibility in the organisation of production and on the other, workers' needs for stability and society's concern that particular categories of workers should not be discriminated against.

The labour force survey of 1975 provides the first set of data on part-time work in Ireland. Between that year and 1989, the most recent year for which we have data, the number of part-time workers increased from 71,500 to 82,000. Although this represents an increase of 10,500 part-time jobs over 14 years, or 15 per cent over the 1975 level, the proportion of persons working part-time in Ireland has remained relatively unchanged. In 1975 part-time workers represented about 6.7 per cent of those with an occupation and the share in 1989 was only slightly larger at 7.5 per cent. It has not been a steady growth, moreover, but a fluctuating one with part-time workers accounting for 7.3 per cent of persons with an occupation in 1977, 5.1 per cent in 1979, regaining in 1983 the 1975 level of 6.7 per cent and peaking in 1988 at 7.8 per cent before declining slightly in 1989.

There have, however been a number of important changes over that period. One of the most important is the distinction made in the labour force between "regular" and "occasional" part-time workers. Regular part-time employment has increased very significantly since 1975 when it stood at 42,500. In 1989 that figure was 70,000. The lesson which we can draw from this is that part-time work is becoming a more permanent feature of the labour market.

There are two further points of note concerning the composition of the part-time labour force. One is the change over time in the sectoral composition. In 1975 one in three part-time jobs was in agriculture, forestry and fishing. That figure has now declined to one in seven. Commerce — which includes retail distribution, banking and business services — and professional services both increased their share largely at the expense of agriculture.

It is in the services sector that the most significant change in part-time work has taken place. In 1975 part-time workers in the service sector made up half of the total part-time labour force. By 1989 this figure had risen to about three quarters. This increase had been particularly rapid in the eighties and hence it has been in services that the real growth in part-time employment has occurred which has tended to be camouflaged by the static levels of part-time work in manufacturing industry or the falling levels in agriculture.

The second point relates to the gender dimension of the part-time labour force. Relative to other EC countries, a higher proportion of men work part-time in Ireland. While an examination of part-time work between 1975 and 1989 demonstrates that it is a predominantly female option there are still a substantial number of men working part-time, albeit for different reasons than women. Men account for about 30 per cent of all part-time workers and are more likely to work part-time either upon entry to the labour force, possibly to facilitate study or multiple job holding or at an age close to or following retirement. In contrast women account for more than three quarters of all part-time workers in the 25-44 age bands which are associated with child rearing. Over 70 per cent of female part-time workers are married; about 60 per cent of the males are single; about one third of the part-time males were under 25, with a further third aged 25-44. In the case of females, fewer than one sixth were under 25, more then half were aged 25-44 and about 30 per cent in the 45-64 age group.

To sum up the scale and trends, part time work and particularly regular part-time work has increased in the last 15 years; while it is a predominantly female option, there are still a substantial number of men working part-time in Ireland, but for different reasons from those of women. The classic part-time worker is female, aged 25-44 and married with dependent children. Nearly three quarters of part-time workers are employed in the service sector.

I have already referred to the extent to which Ireland departs from the EC norm in regard to the gender of part-time workers. That is not the only important difference. In 1988 the percentage share of part-time employees in relation to all employees in the Community overall was 13.6 per cent. This ranged from 4 per cent in Greece to 29.4 per cent in the Netherlands. Other big users of part-time workers were Denmark, 25.5 per cent and the UK, 22.8 per cent. Ireland, at 8.2 per cent ranked seventh among the EC member states, at slightly above half the European average. In other words, we have a very low level of part-time work by international standards.

I would like to turn briefly to what we know about the conditions of part-time workers. While it would be very wrong to equate part-time with precarious or sub-standard jobs, there is some empirical evidence in Ireland that the hourly earnings of part-time workers tend to be below that of their full-time equivalents. Research by the ESRI disclosed that the low paid part-time workers are predominantly women.

In general, existing data have not been able to answer key questions about the work history of part-time workers. Limited evidence on these issues is provided by the reasons given for working part-time in answers to the labour force survey. These show that most women work part-time because of family responsibilities or did not want a full-time job; most male part-timers reported that they could not find a full-time job. But almost 25 per cent of part-time women workers cited inability to find a full-time job as the main reason they were working part-time. These figures do not imply that the negative connotations associated with part-time work do not exist; merely that they are not sufficient to overcome preferences and family responsibilities which at present result in women choosing to work part-time rather than full-time.

If it is the case, as some researchers have speculated, that part-time workers tend to be limited to moving frequently between low status, low skilled jobs with few fringe benefits, the increased protection of part-time workers under the law and measures to assist them to break into the wider labour market need to be placed high on the agenda. The major area of concern, as I have already noted from the contributions of Members in earlier debates, relates to part-time employees who are heavily dependent on this form of employment and who are employed permanently or semi-permanently on a part-time basis. I am concerned that regular part-time workers who are employed on a long term basis are denied entitlement to the most basic protections which are afforded under labour law. This is the inequity which I am seeking to redress.

The present position is that some labour legislation, for example in the areas of occupational safety and health, employment equality and payment of wages, makes no distinction between full-time and part-time employees. However, a requirement that the individual must work at least 18 hours per week applies in a number of statutes. This was originally designed to exclude persons whose employment was of a subsidiary nature or of inconsiderable extent. This also was a requirement of social security legislation and will also be removed by my colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare, by regulations which will come into force on 6 April 1991. The primary protective employment Acts which currently exclude workers who are not employed for a minimum of 18 hours per week are the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, the Maternity Protection of Employees Act, 1981, the Worker Participation (State Enterprises) Acts, 1977 and 1988, the Redundancy Payments Acts, 1967 to 1990, and to some extent the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Acts, 1984 and 1990. Based on labour force survey figures, the 18 hours threshold has the effect of excluding approximately 20,000 employees, of whom at least three-quarters are women, from the benefits of the legislation which incorporates that threshold.

The Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973, does not apply an 18 hours eligibility threshold. Instead it excludes from annual leave entitlement those who do not work at least 120 hours per month or 1,400 hours in the leave year; and in order for a part-timer to gain entitlement to a public holiday, he must work for at least 120 hours in the preceding five weeks. The higher hours thresholds which apply under the Holidays Act have the effect of excluding approximately 45,000 part-timers, of whom 76 per cent are women, from annual leave entitlement, and an estimated 38,000, 78 per cent women, from public holiday entitlement.

During the detailed and prolonged consultations which preceded my proposals the FIE made clear their reasons that employers want more part-time work. Their reasons relate to changing market conditions and extended hours of opening, particularly in services which cannot be undertaken within the standard working day or week. The major benefit of part-time work in businesses is that it provides flexibility, allowing the employer to respond to increased competition and the changing demands of customers.

Further information on the reasons which motivate Irish employers to use part-time work emerges from a survey in course of competition in the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. This survey indicates that in this country the introduction of part-time work is more a result of economic considerations — cost advantages to the employers — than a response to employees' wishes. In this respect the position in Ireland is comparable to that in Britain where, of course, part-time work is much more widespread.

I share with the Social Affairs Commissioner of the European Community the view that in no circumstances can the need for forms of employment relationships such as part-time work be brought into question. It is quite clear that in this country, as in other Community member states, employment relationships are diversifying considerably in response to international competitiveness and to radical changes in the organisation of production, often stimulated by technological change. Very often these changes on the demand side of the labour market are accompanied by supply side changes in the matter of workers' aspirations and individuals' needs.

These developments, it has to be said, have helped to maintain competitiveness and to maintain and to create jobs. Part-time work meets real needs of firms and seems to satisfy better the aspirations and individual and family needs of a number of workers. Part-time work can offer a valid and useful entry point to the labour market for people who are excluded from it, although, so far in Ireland, there is little evidence to support that. Part-time work will for some be a valid and long term employment form, providing them with the flexibility to fulfil the varied demands which they face.

My objective, therefore, in approaching the thresholds which kept some 20,000 workers beyond the pale of labour legislation, was to ensure that safeguards such as exist for their full-time colleagues also exist to protect part-time workers, preventing insecurity and segmentation in the labour market and at the same time avoiding the danger of over-regulation which would jeopardise flexibility, hinder employment growth, and drive some of those jobs into the black economy.

The simple strategy which I employed was to extend that legislation to those who worked eight hours or more a week and had completed 13 weeks with the same employer, that is to say, to regular part-time workers. Regular part-time workers would be treated similarly to full-time workers in relation to all the various statutory rights and would have to fulfil the same service and other conditions as full-time workers to become eligible for those rights.

I have decided to retain a threshold of eight hours. There are arguments for the elimination of all thresholds. In choosing to retain a threshold and to cast it at eight hours a week I was influenced by two considerations. One was the argument by Vasso Papandreou, Social Affairs Commissioner, that her proposed directives on non-standard forms of employment, including part-time work, should not apply to wage and salary earners whose average weekly working hours were less than eight. The Commissioner's reasoning for the retention of a threshold was perfectly sensible: to rule out any disproportionate administrative costs which could run counter to the objectives sought. It is instructive that the Commissioner has made it clear that she intends to maintain the idea of a threshold and has, indeed, only in the last few days included an eight hour threshold in her proposals for a directive on a form of proof of an employment relationship. The other consideration which influenced my selection of an eight hour threshold was to limit the possibility of employers deliberately adjusting their working hours to bring them below the new hours threshold.

Let me explain, now, the terms of the Bill in some detail. As I have already said, this Bill, although relatively short, attempts the complicated task of amending seven separate sets of Acts. Because of this, the Bill may seem relatively obscure and inaccessible to the casual reader. However, I would like to assure the House that every attempt has been made to simplify the Bill while still ensuring that it achieves its objectives without having other unintended effects on the body of legislation which it seeks to amend. In passing, I would mention that adequate explanatory literature will be prepared and disseminated when these proposals have been enacted.

The Bill is structured so as to define "regular part-time" employees in section 1 and to then apply the various Acts to that group of employees in the subsequent sections. The complexity which arose when attempting this task was that the specific provisions which currently exclude regular part-timers from each of the enactments vary. The particular group of individuals who would be categorised as "regular part-time" employees under one Act would not be identical to the group currently excluded under another Act. For example, employees are excluded from the Unfair Dismissals Act by virtue of an 18 hour per week requirement but are excluded from the Holidays Act by a 120 hour per month requirement. Because of this fact, I set out in section 1 each of the "excluding provisions" which at present prevent "regular part-time" employees from coming within the scope of each particular Act or set of Acts which it is intended to amend.

The concept of an "excluding provision" is the key to understanding the Bill and to avert any confusion I want to clarify it. What I mean by an "excluding provision" in section 1 is the provision or provisions which exclude certain workers at present from the seven sets of Acts that I am going to amend. If workers are excluded from those Acts by virtue of those provisions, and meet the minimum criteria in this Bill they are regular part-time employees. "Regular part-time" employees, the target group of this Bill, are therefore defined as those who have at least 13 weeks' service, are normally expected to work at least eight hours per week and who are not at present covered by the relevant enactment because of an excluding provision. As I have already argued, I felt that the minimum qualifications of eight hours per week and 13 weeks service were the appropriate thresholds to define the group of regular part-timers who could and should benefit from the protection of labour law.

In introducing a 13 week threshold in the Bill it was the intention that this would ensure that students and other short term temporary part-time employees would not be covered by the Bill and that the Bill would not create a disincentive to such short-time periods of employment. The 13 week period ensures on the one hand an element of commitment or permanence on the part of the regular part-time employee and, on the other hand, that casual or occasional workers will still be largely excluded from the provisions of the protective legislation involved.

In order to ensure that the 13 week qualification period under the Bill could not be abused and used as an artificial barrier to exclude regular part-time employees by offering them employment for repeated periods of less than 13 weeks, I decided, as set out in section 2, to calculate the 13 weeks in accordance with the First Schedule to the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973. This is the mechanism used to calculate continuous service for full-time employees and since its inception in the early seventies, has proved to be an effective and satisfactory method of determining continuity. Where any disputes arise in this respect the employees will be able to put the case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal for determination.

I would like to mention in passing that because of changes in the insurability of part-time workers which have been brought about by the Minister for Social Welfare it will be necessary for me to adjust and update accordingly the references in the definition of an excluding provision in section 1 and this I will do on Committee Stage.

Section 2 specifies that where a service qualification of 13 weeks or longer already applies in an Act which this Bill seeks to extend to regular part-time employees, then the original 13 weeks which is required under this Bill, to qualify as a regular part-time employee, will count towards the longer service period. An example of this arises under the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, where an employee must have one year's service to be fully covered by the Act. Under this Bill the regular part-timers' first 13 weeks will count towards the one year requirement. This provision in the Bill is justifiable on equity grounds but, in any event was considered necessary to avoid confusion and to reduce administrative difficulties which might arise if the 13 week qualifying period were not to be incorporated in the longer service requirement.

While the first 13 weeks of employment will count towards longer service periods it will not confer any other benefits or rights under the various Acts. Section 2 (3), for instance, ensures that no entitlement to holidays will be built up in the initial 13 week period. If this were not provided for, a real cost barrier to employment beyond 13 weeks would be created, leading to a reduction in regular part-time employment opportunities. Some employers who would on the beginning of the fourteenth week of employment become liable for a back dated holiday entitlement might be tempted not to retain people beyond that time and section 2 (3) is intended to prevent this disincentive to regular part-time employment.

Section 3 is a key provision. This provides for the application of all the relevant Acts to regular part-time employees, with the exception of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973. In other words section 3 (1) extends to regular part-time employees the benefits of the Redundancy Payments Acts, 1967 to 1990, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, the Worker Participation (State Enterprises) Acts, 1977 and 1988, the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, the Maternity Protection of Employees Act, 1981 and the Protection of Employees (Employers Insolvency) Acts, 1984 and 1990. Because of the definition of regular part-time employee which has been used in section 1 of the Act it is possible for me to extend in this clear and simple provision all of these Acts to the target group on essentially the same basis as they are applied to full time employees.

The provision in section 3 (2) was necessary because of the structure of the social insurance system but will require reconsideration in the light of the change in that structure as a consequence of the Social Welfare (Employment of Inconsiderable Extent) Regulations, 1991, signed by my colleague the Minister for Social Welfare on 14 February.

The provisions of section 3 are very important as they give regular part-time employees the protection of basic labour laws which have been built up in the State over the last 25 years and which are relied upon by most other workers to regulate and protect their employment. Regular part-time employees have been very vulnerable to exploitation and when this has arisen they have not been able to call on the basic legal protection that exists for other workers. For example, a regular part-time employee could be employed for ten or 15 years with the same employer, giving sterling service and could then be let go at the whim of the employer. Those workers could not in the past rely on the Unfair Dismissals Act to protect them, they could not appeal their dismissal to the Employment Appeals Tribunal and they had no entitlement to a redundancy payment after their 15 years service. It is this type of vulnerability which the provisions of the Bill seek to redress.

Another area of vulnerability arose in relation to female part-time employees who became pregnant. Women constitute almost three-quarters of the part-time labour force and when these women became pregnant they were not protected from arbitrary dismissal due to their pregnancy as they were not covered by the Unfair Dismissals Act. Neither were they covered by the Maternity Protection of Employees Act, 1981, and hence they had no entitlement to take maternity leave and have their job protected until their return. These women either had to give up their job when their baby was born or else hope that the employer would hold the job open for a couple of weeks by which time they might be able to return to work. This again was inequitable as the same period of maternity leave is clearly required by all women workers. The provisions of section 3 will now provide that all women regular part-time employees will be entitled to that minimum period of 14 weeks maternity leave enjoyed by other female employees and they will be entitled to have their job held open for that period with full protection from dismissal during the period of maternity leave. I am sure that the extension of these entitlements will be welcomed by all parties in the House and by the many thousands of women who are working part-time on a permanent basis.

Section 4 deals with the extension of holiday entitlements to regular part-time employees. Basically, the Bill provides for the application of the provisions of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973, to regular part-time employees in the same way as they are applied to full-time employees, with the broad exception of the way in which annual leave entitlements are calculated.

Under the 1973 Act, employees who work at least 120 hours per month or 1,400 hours per year are entitled to three weeks annual leave. There is no obvious equivalent to the 120 hour requirement for regular part-time employees as defined in the Bill. Therefore, the Bill attempts to provide an alternative mechanism which will give regular part-time employees an approximately equivalent level of entitlement to annual leave as full-time employees. Section 4 (3) (a) provides that regular part-time employees, as defined in the Bill, will be entitled to annual leave at the rate of six hours for every 100 hours worked.

Other important provisions of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973, such as the public holiday entitlement and the method of determining times and pay for annual leave, are being extended under section 4 to all regular part-time employees. I regard this section as one of great importance as, in the past, a regular part-time employee could be working year in, year out, without getting any annual holidays or any time off or compensation for public holidays. This was an intolerable position and it was not correct that people who are permanent members of the labour force should be left open to this form of exploitation. Accordingly, the provisions in section 4 will also be welcomed by all in the House and will safeguard the rights of these employees to an annual holiday and to the public holidays which are at present enjoyed by the vast majority of the labour force. Because the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973 is a relatively complex Act drafted primarily with the intention of providing entitlements to full-time employees, a number of the provisions of that Act have had to be amended to make them applicable to regular part-time employees.

I would like to explain the purpose of some of these provisions as they may seem somewhat obscure to some Members. Section 4 (2) is intended to ensure that provisions in the 1973 Act which are not appropriate to regular part-time employees are not applied to them. Section 4 (3) (b) provides that time spent by regular part-time employees on annual leave shall count as time worked for the purposes of earning annual leave entitlement. The subsection replaces an equivalent section in the 1973 Act, part of the wording of which is not appropriate in the context of regular part-time employees.

Section 4 (3) (c) modifies further provisions in the Act of 1973, the wording of which is not appropriate in relation to regular part-time employees. Under the Act of 1973 a qualifying employee with eight months' service is generally entitled to an unbroken period of leave of two weeks. Section 4 (3) (c) provides an equivalent entitlement for regular part-time employees. Because the annual leave entitlement of regular part-time employees is to be reckoned in terms of hours rather than weeks, it is necessary to provide an alternative to the full-timer's two week entitlement. The alternative provided in the Bill in section 4 (3) (c) is a choice between the leave entitlement earned over the eight months' period concerned or of two-thirds of the total leave entitlement earned in the year concerned. Either way regular part-time workers will be entitled to an unbroken period away from the workplace as their full-time colleagues are at present.

Section 4 (3) (d) of the Bill also modifies a provision of the 1973 Act part of the wording of which is not appropriate in relation to regular part-time employees. Section 5 (1) of the 1973 Act provides for payment of compensation for annual leave due on termination of employment. However, the method of determining compensation in the 1973 Act is based on the concept of the employee having a "qualifying month of service". This is not applicable in relation to regular part-time employees as under this Bill they will receive entitlement on the basis of six hours for every 100 hours worked. Accordingly section 4 (3) (d) provides for compensation on a basis which is proportionate to the normal weekly rate of pay.

There is one further point in relation to section 4 (3) (d) on which I would like to alert the House. This drafting is not clear as it stands and its meaning would be much clearer if the words "in case the cesser occurs during the first half of that year" were inserted after the comma in the middle of line 33 of page 6 of the Bill; I will be seeking to have these words inserted on Committee Stage in order to complete the sense of this provision.

Section 4 (3) (e) modifies a further provision of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973, the wording of which is not appropriate in relation to regular part-time employees. Section 5 (3) of the 1973 Act provides that where employment ceases in the five week period ending before a public holiday and the employee has worked for the employer for at least 120 hours in the part of the period prior to the cessation of employment, the employer must pay any extra day's pay in respect of the public holiday. There is no obvious equivalent to the 120 hour requirement for regular part-time employees, so instead the Bill provides that they must have worked during at least four of the five weeks prior to the cessation of employment in order to qualify. I feel that this four week requirement for regular part-time employees imposes a similar obligation to the 120 hour requirement in the 1973 Act.

Section 4 (3) (f) also changes a provision in the 1973 Act, part of the wording of which is not appropriate in relation to regular part-time employees Section 6 (3) (b) of the 1973 Act provides that payment for annual leave should be "at the normal weekly rate of remuneration". However, as regular part-time employees are to be granted annual leave at the rate of six hours per 100 hours worked, this Bill provides that they be remunerated "at a rate which is proportionate to the normal weekly rate of remuneration". The concept of the "normal weekly rate of remuneration" is well established in the 1973 Act and was, therefore, retained as the general basis on which payment will be determined for regular part-time employees in this Bill.

Section 4 (4) provides that nothing in this Bill shall have the effect of granting retrospective entitlement to annual leave or public holidays prior to the commencement date of the Bill in relation to the holidays provisions. The reason for introducing this provision is to prevent part-time employees claiming on the commencement date a retrospective entitlement for holidays. Such a retrospective entitlement would impose a severe cost burden on certain employers.

Section 5 of the Bill provides for referral to the Employment Appeals Tribunal of any dispute relating to the 13 weeks continuous service required to qualify as a regular part-time employee. This is something entirely separate from disputes relating to period of service required under, for example, the Unfair Dismissals Act or the Redundancy Payments Act, which as far as it concerns regular part-time workers, will continue to be resolved under the mechanisms which are already used to resolve these disputes for employees qualified under the individual Acts. I believe that this is a fair and equitable way of dealing with disputes in relation to the service of part-timers and it will allow the Employment Appeals Tribunal to examine the specific circumstances of any particular dispute as to whether the employee was a regular part-time employee for the purposes of this Bill.

Section 6 simply deals with the regulations which will control how these disputes are referred to and considered by the tribunal.

The remaining sections of the Bill are standard. However, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that a reference to the Unfair Dismissals Act has been accidentally omitted from the collective citations in section 8 and I will be seeking to have it included on Committee Stage.

To conclude, I would simply like to reiterate that the Bill represents a major social advancement through the extension of the whole body of protective labour law and individual employment rights to a substantial category of employees who, heretofore, were vulnerable and increasingly subject to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. The good employer has nothing to fear from this legislation. It simply extends the rights already enjoyed by the vast majority of employees to this rather marginalised group. As a well balanced and progressive response to the needs of these employees, I commend the Bill to this House.

Mr. Shatter

On behalf of Fine Gael I welcome the fact that we are taking Second Stage of this Bill. It is long overdue legislation. It has been a matter of some concern for a considerable time that we have a large number of people in regular part-time employment who find themselves, in a sense, outside the legal mainstream of the employment protection legislation and labour law provisions that are designed to ensure that people are treated properly in the workplace. This Bill is a welcome measure in so far as it will extend to part-time workers the legal protections that exist under the various pieces of legislation the Minister has referred to.

It is no exaggeration to say that approximately 20,000 people in the workforce who are known to be part-time workers have been in something of a legal twilight zone or legal limbo and have been left without the protection that is normally afforded to the full-time worker. Indeed, I suspect that the numbers who will be affected by this legislation are a good deal more than the 20,000 to whom it is thought it will currently apply.

There are a number of workers currently working part-time who, through employer pressures, do not disclose the fact that they are working part-time as they are working in the black economy or due to the inequities of our tax system, work part-time and receive an undeclared income. Their existence is not known by Government Departments and they do not appear in the statistics. That will remain a problem even after this legislation is enacted because while our tax rates remain unnecessarily high and the tax bands remain too close, many people who are working part-time will not declare themselves to be so working and will find themselves falling outside the ambit of this legislation because family pressures and an inequitable tax system will keep them in the black economy.

I do not believe we will solve all our problems in this area with this Bill. Certainly the Bill is welcome in that it will extend protection to many of whose who are currently unprotected and who are acknowledged and declare themselves to be within the workforce. The Minister correctly stated that the various surveys show there are currently an estimated 20,000 acknowledged part-time workers. It would not surprise me if the reality was more in the region of 40,000 part-time workers, if one took account of the black economy and people who do not truthfully respond to such surveys for reasons relating to taxation. Out of the numbers of either declared part-time workers or those in the black economy, there is absolutely no doubt that a large proportion are female workers. The statistics show that approximately 70 per cent of those working part-time are women workers. Many who are working part-time for many years have been regular workers in the employment of small firms or in some instances in the employment of major supermarket chains or local shops in a country town.

The reality is that many of the things this legislation provides in the context of holiday entitlements and maternity leave are already provided because the good employer has provided those voluntarily to the part-time worker in regular employment for many years. The good employer with a good part-time employee has recognised that the person he is employing is entitled to holiday periods and maternity leave and is entitled to be treated in the same way as a full-time employee is treated. This legislation will ensure that the bad employer is required to treat his part-time workforce properly. In the context of our approach to ensuring that men and women are treated equally within the workforce, it has been my belief for some time that the absence of a provision for maternity leave for part-time workers, as part of our statutory mechanisms, was an issue that could have been raised under the equality provisions of the Rome Treaty. There is a suggestion that we are in breach of equal treatment provisions both in directives and under the Treaty with regard to the manner in which women should be treated as part of the workforce. It is quite extraordinary that in the Ireland of the nineties — until the enactment of this legislation which will take some weeks — a woman who has been working in a firm for ten or 15 years and who becomes pregnant not only is not entitled to maternity leave if she is a part-time worker, working less than 18 hours a week, but if she takes it, her employer could simply dismiss her and she would have no redress, no matter how many years she has been working for the employer, if she fell within the part-time workforce. That is an extraordinary example of inequality and of the lack of social legislation that is very badly needed.

I welcome the fact that this legislation will ensure that the large proportion of women who are part of our part-time workforce will be entitled to proper maternity leave and will not only get the statutory maternity leave but will find that they have all the protections that are extended to full-time workers under the Unfair Dismissals Act. This type of reform should have been introduced many years ago.

In the context of maternity leave there are moves in other European countries to provide paternity as well as maternity leave. Whereas this is not something that is intrinsically relevant to this legislation, as 30 per cent of our part-time workers are also men it is quite justifiable to make the point that at a time when we recognise equality between men and women, when we recognise that husbands and wives as parents have a joint parenting role in relation to their children we should recognise in this House that there is a need for legislation to provide not merely for maternity leave but for paternity leave so that when a baby is born it is possible for both parents to take leave. There may be circumstances — these would not arise in all cases — where a woman returning from a maternity hospital with a baby a few days old requires the support of her husband and his being at home to assist with other young children in the family for at least a number of days if not a number of weeks. We are accustomed in this country to the extended family helping in such circumstances. At a time of greater mobility within this country, for example, a young mother and her husband may be isolated in a suburban housing estate in Dublin, and the grandparents of the children may be living in Cork or Kerry with the result that the type of assistance and support she needs is not always available to the mother on the day she returns from hospital with her baby. Indeed, it is not always available during the first three or four weeks following the birth of a baby. Therefore, we would want to look very seriously at the question of paternity leave. There is provision for such leave in other European countries. It is something which in the long term will be imposed by Europe. So much of our legislation in these areas has been imposed by Europe — the equal pay Act and the equal treatment Acts would not be there without EC Directives. Could we just for once thread a path in this area in the context of paternity leave in which we would take measures and introduce reforms that are not forced on us by the European Commission or our European Community obligations but which we take for their own sake and because they are worth taking?

In the context of part-time workers I want to raise a hobby horse of mine, that is that maternity leave should apply not only to the young mother who has a baby in hospital and returns home with her baby but should extend also to the mother in circumstances where a child is adopted. Where a baby or a young child has been adopted it should be acknowledged that the mother who adopts a child should be entitled under our statutory provisions to a period of adjustment with her newly adopted child of exactly the same nature as that extended to the mother who has a baby through pregnancy. That is all part of the necessary, civilising effects of legislation to deal with the total social perspective of family situations. We do not have that. We have not yet extended our maternity leave provisions to adoptive parents. The good employer has done this voluntarily in some instances but it should be part of the law. Some of the 70 per cent of the part-time regular workforce that is female have in the past adopted children and no doubt some will do so in the future. I would invite the Minister to consider that issue, and to address it in this legislation by way of amendment on Committee Stage.

The great importance of this legislation is in extending employment protection to part-time workers. Under the unfair dismissals legislation no real protection is extended to a person who has been in regular employment for 15, 20 or 25 years as a part-time worker if they are working below the specific hours provided for in that legislation. It is only right that someone who has longevity in employment should have extended to them the protections afforded under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

Part-time work is going to increase. The Minister has very correctly shown that it has not increased to the levels we thought it would but that is due to the changing impacts on our industry in the last ten or 15 years — the changes in the manufacturing industry, the moving of part-time workers into the service sector. We are going to see a real growth of part-time working in the coming years because of new consumer demands, new flexibility required within the workforce and with people developing a different attitude to work. We are going to see an increase in both employees and employers opting for part-time work. It is very important in that context that the Unfair Dismissals Act protections are available to those who find themselves in regular part-time employment.

Part-time work is a feature of a variety of different social backgrounds. For example, there is the young mother who wants to work part-time in the mornings to be available in the afternoon with her children when they return from school. There is the person who takes early retirement and who wants to lead an active life by taking regular part-time work in a variety of different types of employment situations that are available at the moment. There is the mature person who, having been part of the full time workforce, decides that they want to go back to study and who in order to complete a study course will undertake part-time work of a regular nature to maintain themselves and their families during the period of study. Different types of part-time work are being undertaken and there is still a large amount of it within the black economy and underclared. It would be my hope that those people who are in the undeclared part-time workforce will become a declared part of it. I would ask the Minister to ensure that when this legislation is enacted its provisions are given wide publicity in a simplistic form so that those who are in the part time workforce but who, perhaps, are also in the black economy will become aware that as a result of this legislation there are considerable advantages to be gained from coming out from under the covers and declaring themselves to be at work. The part-time worker who has been working for 16 hours a week has had no particular reason at all to declare their existence until now. If a husband was in employment and his wife got part-time work, the tax system was such that if she declared her income such a large portion of it would have disappeared in tax as to make it completely uneconomical and nonsensical to even remain part of the part-time workforce. Not only were such persons inhibited by tax but they had no real protections in their employment.

Following the enactment of this legislation there will be protections but that deals only with part of the problem. The Minister for Finance has a particular role, which he failed to live up to in the budget, to tackle the problems of our tax system and the burdens it imposes on families in the context of the high demands it makes if both members of a family are part of a declared workforce.

There are some technical difficulties in regard to the legislation. I do not think it is appropriate on Second Stage to go into any great detail on the technical difficulties in the Bill. It is very complicated legislation. Unfortunately it has to be because of the issues to be addressed. One could argue with the Minister or the parliamentary draftsman that there are simpler ways of phrasing things but in this case the Minister had no choice but to introduce the Bill in this form.

Our labour law legislation is becoming more and more complex. This Bill now amends six different measures. In fact it amends more than six if one takes into account the various pieces of legislation it is amending as well. The problem is that as that happens, our legislation becomes increasingly incomprehensible to everybody and tends, to give rise to unnecessary disputes because of the obscurity of its provisions.

There is amending legislation promised to cover unfair dismissals and other matters in the employment equality area. We are reaching a stage in the labour law area generally where there is a need for consolidating Acts to cover each of the major areas that our labour law legislation addresses. When it comes to the time to introduce legislation to amend the unfair dismissals legislation and the employment equality legislation I suggest to the Minister that rather than introducing an amending Bill it would be almost as easy to introduce an entirely new Bill incorporating all the provisions in the Unfair Dismissals Act at present and the amendments that are intended to be made to it. We would then have one piece of legislation to which everyone would refer on unfair dismissals. That would also include the provisions in the part-time worker Bill relating to unfair dismissals as well. When drafting that type of legislation one has to look at the original statutes and when we are having a debate on Committee Stage in this House we are all looking at two or three pieces of legislation to come to terms with their provisions. It would be just as easy to incorporate them in one comprehensive Bill. I invite the Minister to look at the possibility of providing for consolidating legislation. The need for that is selfexplanatory in the context of the legislation we have before us today. One only has to look at the front page where there are references, for example, to the Redundancy Payments Acts, 1967 and 1979 and we will now have this legislation here. There is reference to the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, and now that is affected by this legislation. There is a need now to consolidate our labour law legislation.

Having said that I will not go into the detail of particular sections. The Minister did make some reference to the various sections. I would like to raise some issues with the Minister that I hope he will be in a position to respond to in reply to the debate on Second Stage or, if not, to give him advance warning of them so that they can be addressed on Committee Stage. I refer the Minister to the observations on this Bill from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions dated January 1990. Some of the points made by Congress have been passed by events. In particular Congress objected to the suggestion of the eight hour threshold and suggested that could be in breach of European Community law. It seems clear that, in so far as there will be a harmonisation of this area within the European Communities, the Commission is currently talking about an eight hour threshold. If that is the case it seems that we will not be in breach of European Community law but will be, for once, doing something in advance of being directed to do so by the European Community.

Mr. B. Ahern

That eight hours is the opening negotiation point by the Commission. I do not think they have much chance of achieving eight. It will be 11 or 12.

Mr. Shatter

I would like to address that and say that when one looks at the eight hour threshold the Federation of Irish Employers had some considerable objection to that and they are suggesting a 12 hour threshold. I can anticipate a battle within the Council of Ministers in Europe when the Commissioner finalises the proposal on that very issue. It seems what we are doing here will certainly insure that we comply with whatever comes out of Europe. Indeed it may be that we will provide greater protection in this country than exists in some other member states for part-time workers. The point also has to be made that if the threshold falls below eight hours, a particular difficulty could arise in regard to employers taking on for just two or three hours someone that they feel they require for three or four months in the year. It could work against temporary part-time employment as opposed to regular long-time part-time employment which this legislation is designed to deal with.

There is a problem in relation to maternity leave which I would like the Minister to address. At present maternity leave entitles one to 14 weeks leave. If an employer employs a substitute for a person on maternity leave for over eight hours a week for 14 weeks how will the legislation interact in the context of maintaining the job open for the person on maternity leave and who wants to return to employment? Because of the one year requirement under the unfair dismissals legislation, if he recruits someone for 12 weeks out of 14 weeks that legislation would normally come into play. How will this legislation impact in regard to someone who is employed during a period of maternity leave? As I understand it if I employ someone for 14 weeks — it is a 14-week contract — it should not of necessity create any problem. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that aspect. If someone is employed on a 14-week contract no particular problem should arise in the interaction with maternity entitlements in regard to the person returning from maternity leave and the person who took on the part-time work for 14 weeks.

Another area has been of great concern in labour law generally for some considerable time and Congress have rightly raised it in the context of this Bill though it has a wider application. The Bill fails to recognise one of the most important features of part-time employment, the prevalence of contract and agency work. Congress recommend that the Bill be amended to incorporate their own definition of "employer" and "employee". Congress suggest that such an amendment should provide that an "employer" means the person by whom the employee is employed under a contract of employment or the person who secures the services of an employee through a contract with an employment agency or otherwise and that an "employee" should be defined as a person insurable for occupational injuries.

I am not sure that the amendments suggested by Congress would fully and properly address this problem. A problem has existed for a long time where an employer takes on someone as a contract worker as if they are not fully an employee of the firm. Can someone who is taken on part-time be treated as other than an employee by the person, who in reality is employing them, but is describing the person being employed as something other than an employee? In other words, can a legal mechanism be used to put a part-time worker outside the ambit of this legislation? Perhaps the Minister will respond to the suggested amendment from Congress and deal with that issue which has arisen in the past and has been addressed in some legislation.

In relation to continuity of service Congress make the point that the definition of "continuity of service" laid down in the First Schedule of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act does not take account of the insecure nature of part-time employment. They believe that the definition contained in the redundancy Acts is more appropriate. Will the Minister respond to that point? Congress also raise with regard to the redundancy payments Acts a query as to whether exempting employers from making a contribution to the redundancy fund, on behalf of regular part-time workers, would interfere with the employee's statutory requirements. That is another matter to which the Minister should respond.

The Minister in his contribution made reference to the fact that if there is a dispute about continuity of service the Employment Appeals Tribunal will have a role under this legislation to determine that dispute. He went on to say that in the context of applying the statutory provisions in our labour laws to regular part-time workers the other mechanisms that exist under those Acts for resolving disputes will now apply to regular part-time workers. That will mean that the Employment Appeals Tribunal will have a number of roles other than simply in the context of determining continuity of service. For example, the Employment Appeals Tribunal may have a role in determining a dispute between a part-time employee who comes under this legislation and an employer where there has been an unfair dismissal.

There is a specific issue I want to raise with the Minister in this regard about which I tabled a Dáil question yesterday. I was disappointed with the Minister's reply. The original intention in having an Employment Appeals Tribunal was to provide a less formal forum than the courts for determining disputes in relation to unfair dismissals. The idea was that not only would there be less formality, as both employers and unions were represented in the composition of the tribunal, but the people who would go before them would feel that those on the tribunal were attuned to each of their sides when it came to dispute determination. That did not mean that the employer representative would necessarily favour an employer but there would be a global understanding of the nature of disputes from different prospectives in determining them in relation to unfair dismissals. There was also the hope that it would diminish the expense involved in determining unfair dismissals cases. Prior to the existence of the Employment Appeals Tribunal very often the only remedy available was to head into the courts. The expense of instructing solicitors and barristers, although that was necessary, was a major inhibiting factor, in particular to an employee who lacked resources to pursue their rights and to protect their job position.

One of the difficulties with the Employment Appeals Tribunal as it has evolved is that in most instances an employer is legally represented when a case is brought before it. My experience, and I am sure the Minister has statistics on this which he might give to the House, in the vast majority of cases is that the employer who comes before the Employment Appeals Tribunal is legally represented by a solicitor and frequently by a solicitor and a barrister. In many instances an employee would be represented by a trade union representative, who may be an official of the trade union or a lawyer appointed by the trade union. Many employees are not members of unions and within the part-time workforce I suspect a large proportion are not members of unions.

It is essential to ensure that the protections we are extending to the part-time workforce in this legislation are real and not illusory. Far too often we pass legislation which creates a perception that extra rights or extra protections have been extended to a group of people within our community but when one cuts through the legislation one discovers that the rights are not real because the people to whom they are being extended lack the resources to assert those rights. Many employees are in a difficult situation when they are dismissed from their employment. For example, they may not receive a particularly large wage, and have to struggle weekly to support themselves and their families, they do not have large resources available to them and they are not members of trade unions.

If there is a dispute and an employee is dismissed after eight or nine years service, it will end up in the Employment Appeals Tribunal. At the tribunal the employer will be accompanied by a solicitor and a barrister while the employee, who has no expertise in that area will be alone. An employee who ends up in those circumstances, not represented by a union official or a lawyer, is at a major and serious disadvantage. In many instances the protections extended under unfair dismissals legislation are illusory; they are not perceived as real to such an employee. That employee will not understand the technicalities of unfair dismissals legislation and will not be familiar with how matters are dealt with before the tribunal. If witnesses are to be called, she will not know who should be called. She will lack the skills to cross examine an employer who sets out his or her case against the employee. Because the employee is upset and involved in what is happening she will not be able to present her case in a temperate way and very often as a result her case will not be successful.

Many employees now realise that if they do not have union backing they have to be legally represented before a tribunal. Many employers now know that if they go in with a legal team and are dealing with a vulnerable employee who is not backed up by a union, by keeping the case running before the tribunal and building up the expenses, they can create a situation where the amount of money an employee may recoup by way of compensation for loss of their job will be less than the legal costs incurred in being represented before the tribunal. That should not happen. Employers should not be able to use their financial resources to diminish the rights to which employees are entitled before a tribunal by exacerbating the expenses involved in the context of the legal armoury they use.

There is a real need to tackle this problem. I want to refer to why this is happening at present. Even in the most gross and serious case — it may run for four, five or six days — and no matter how well an employee succeeded or how badly the employer has behaved the Employment Appeals Tribunal cannot require an employer to pay the legal costs, justifiably, bona fide and properly incurred by the employee in seeking to ensure that his or her name is not blackened and to reassert their position not only in the interests of getting compensation for the loss of their job but to ensure that they will be employable by another employer following the completion of the process. Employees cannot get legal help through a Government law centre to back up their cases.

I believe a large number of employees and large segments of our workforce are not unionised. Indeed, in recent years there has been a fall off rather than a growth in union membership. A large number of employees will not be truly protected under this legislation because an employer who behaves badly and has the resources to employ lawyers can make it uneconomical or financially impossible for employees to take their cases before a tribunal not only to secure compensation but to protect their name and reputation and ensure they are in a position in the labour market where, if they are not reinstated in their former employment — in many instances an employee will not seek to be reinstated if there has been a major dispute — they can get employment elsewhere.

This issue has to be addressed. I am not suggesting that we should create within the Employment Appeals Tribunal a vast panoply of lawyers running in and out daily. However, I am suggesting that where employees are represented by lawyers and there is a finding that they have behaved properly and the employer has not, and the employee is awarded compensation for the loss of his job, the Employment Appeals Tribunal should have discretion to require an employer to meet the legal costs incurred by the employee. Perhaps that discretion could be circumscribed where the employer is represented by lawyers. In one or two cases solicitors' firms have been the employers brought before the Employment Appeals Tribunal and the employee has been a secretary in that firm. Even if those employers are not legally represented, clearly they will plead their case in a way which will place their employees at a disadvantage. We need to look at this issue. To simply dismiss this as not a particularly serious issue, as unfortunately the Minister did in his reply to my parliamentary question yesterday, is not addressing the problem.

Some of what I have said might be interpreted by Deputy Rabbitte as implicitly saying that all employees should join trade unions. Indeed, in the context of unfair dismissals legislation——

Mr. Rabbitte

Is that not what the Deputy is saying?

Mr. Shatter

——and other legislation, many employees are in a better position if they are members of trade unions than if they are not. However, if one is talking about employment equality legislation the attitude some of the unions have taken in relation to women workers and part-time workers would indicate that one would want to be a million miles from certain named trade unions, some of whom have found themselves in difficulties with the equality officer for being in breach of equal pay legislation. Members of the public must have a choice — employees are entitled to be members of a union or not. This House is not entitled to pass legislation which means that if you are a member of a union the legislation has teeth but if you are not a member of a union it does not.

I am particularly concerned about the unfair dismissals aspects of this legislation. Seventy per cent of part-time workers are women while 30 per cent are male and I expect the majority are not unionised. Some of them are employed by major companies and businesses. If, in the case of disputes which end up in the Employment Appeals Tribunal, part-time and full-time workers do not have some protection in the context of being able to get legal backup against their employer who employs a legal team to plead his case, then the legislation will not have the effect I believe the Minister would like it to have.

There is much more I could say about the Bill. I have dwelt on some of the issues which are of concern to me. In doing this I do not want to take away from the fact that I very much welcome the Bill and I am glad the Minister has brought it before the House. I have no doubt that it is the Minister's sincere wish that this Bill will be effective. The Fine Gael Party will facilitate the Minister in the early and speedy passage of this Bill within the limit of ensuring that on Committee Stage we tease out some of the problems which need to be teased out. I hope the Minister will take on board some of the comments I have made, which are designed to be constructive. I hope the Minister will look at any constructive amendments we on this side of the House put down on Committee Stage with a view to taking them on board. I welcome the Bill and hope we will have a speedy Committee Stage so that it can be brought before the Seanad before the Easter recess.

Mr. T. O'Sullivan

The decision made by the Minister for Labour to finally introduce this legislation to protect the rights of part-time workers is to be welcomed. The Bill does not take into account all the changes that have occurred in the Irish labour market resulting from an increase in the number of part-time workers in receipt of low pay. This Bill could have been courageous and relevant legislation if the Minister for Labour had accepted full responsibility for his portfolio and the desperate need for comprehensive legislation to protect a great number of people who are vulnerable and without rights in the workplace. Deputy Shatter referred at length to some of these people and I share his concern.

The labour market has changed. Part-time work is on the increase and it is primarily associated with low pay. The Minister must be aware that the crisis in low paid employment affects thousands of individuals and families throughout Ireland. To date, the Government responses have been totally inadequate. The rights of workers and their living standards have been eroded over the years by falling rates of pay in the part-time work sector. The position of these people in the workplace has been made increasingly unstable by the growth of unemployment and the emergence of part-time work as a rule rather than an exception. It is interesting to see how the Minister deals with what he calls regular and casual part-time workers. What he has done is effectively institutionalised part-time work. He has accepted that there are within the area of part-time work two categories of workers. That is a recognition that we have now abandoned the idea of providing full-time employment for our people, and this is regrettable.

One instance has received much publicity in the last number of days, and indeed this was highlighted very effectively last night by Deputy De Rossa. I refer to the circumstances involving a small factory in Finglas which up to recently employed women on a part-time basis at the rate of £2.75 per hour. These people have now been dismissed and have been replaced by boys earning £1.50 an hour. What is regrettable is that these boys were recruited through FÁS, a State institution representing the Minister. This institution are guilty of collusion in trying to undermine the workers by employing workers at a cheaper rate of pay and making redundant the people who were employed at a higher rate. This is, indeed, regrettable and is an indictment of the State. This has been done without any contact with third parties and without taking into account the rights of full-time workers in relation to unfair dismissal, redundancy and so on. The employer involved has refused an invitation by the Industrial Relations Committee who offered their help in sorting out the dispute. This dispute underlines the necessity for a statutory minimum wage, which would ensure that employees are not faced with this type of problem.

Minimum wage legislation would also protect the legitimate employer paying PAYE and PRSI and would help stamp out the black economy. The Minister had a perfect opportunity to combine a minimum wage measure with this Bill but it is regrettable he failed to do so. I have given only one instance, but I am sure every Deputy can think of similar instances in his or her constituency. Against this background it is easy to see that the Bill is inadequate in dealing with regulations relating to disputes. It appears to shift the burden of responsibility for redressing grievances primarily on part-time employees. The provisions dealing with procedures relating to disputes are unfair and weak because under this Bill it is up to the employee to ensure that the provisions are implemented by the employer.

Deputy Shatter highlighted the cost involved to an individual and the ability of the individual to process his or her claim. Many young people have no previous experience of negotiating on their own behalf. Now they are to be faced with an impressive array of lawyers representing the employer and they are ill-equipped to represent themselves. There is a need for an amendment in this area and I would ask the Minister to accept such an amendment. For example, in the case of a dispute the Bill provides for access to a tribunal. Does the Minister really believe that shop assistants in a large supermarket chain will have effective access to justice if there is a disparity in their income? The Labour Party believe this is the weakest section of the Bill and will be calling for a mechanism whereby employers and the Department of Labour will play a more responsible role in ensuring that the rights of part-time employees are fully met.

Low pay remains the single biggest cause of poverty among women and young people. Two-thirds of those on low pay are women. A Minister who introduces a part-time workers Bill without providing a national minimum weekly and hourly rate of pay is left open to a charge of cynicism. The Labour Party and others have been campaigning for a minimum wage for many years. It is the only realistic way of ensuring that the problem of low pay is addressed properly. We reject the argument that such an approach to minimum wage legislation would be detrimental to employment creation. If that argument were true why has it not applied, for example, in the United States of America where there is minimum wage legislation and where the growth in jobs in the last few years has been among the fastest in the world?

However, the Minister's decision to exclude this crucial matter should come as no surprise when one recalls his objections at the Council of Ministers meeting in December 1989 to clauses of the European Social Charter dealing with the concept of a basic wage. As a result, this basic social right was deleted from the final draft of the Social Charter. I will quote from a document, Cheap Labour — Britain's False Economy, by Peter Brosnan and Frank Wilkinson which states: “The Council of Europe, in assessing compliance with the terms of the European Social Charter, has singled out the UK, together with Ireland, for the extent of its failure to maintain a decent minimum level of wages.” That is what the Council of Europe thinks of Ireland and its legislation dealing with levels of pay.

The Bill does not provide for protection for workers in contract or service employment. The Minister's failure to cover contract workers must be seen as a major flaw in this legislation. Contract work has become increasingly popular with employers as in many cases it relieves them of legal obligations. Many of the workers in the Goodman enterprise, for instance, discovered to their cost that contract employment is attractive only on a very superficial basis, ensuring, as it does, a virtually complete absence of any rights or job security.

In short, we welcome the Bill, but we will be putting forward amendments on Committee Stage, and I sincerely ask the Minister to give them consideration. I would like to refer to one omission from the Bill. In March 1990 when we discussed Deputy Rabbitte's Bill on part-time workers the Minister said the National Pensions Board were to examine the question of pension entitlements of part-time workers and that the board would report on the issue. I would like to ask the Minister what precisely has been done about this. Has any action been taken or has the report of the National Pensions Board been taken into account? Perhaps on Committee Stage the Minister would put down an amendment in this regard. He certainly gave the House an assurance on that occasion that the matter would be under examination, and I would like to know what he has done in this regard.

The Minister said the provision with regard to equal rights is broadly in line with the recommendation of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Does "broadly in line" mean that Congress accept the main thrust of the provision but disagree on the detail? If Congress allow themselves to be used as a stalking horse for the Minister their future will be in danger. There are many holes in this legislation. It is certainly not very comprehensive.

In his speech the Minister referred to the growth of part-time work and the characteristics of part-time workers including the important gender dimension. It has been proved beyond doubt that women are the lowest paid section of the community. Stifling equality in the workplace will do nothing to redress the problem of part-time workers. What is needed is a minimum wages policy.

I would like to refer to the Minister's comments on the FIE. He said they believe part-time work leads to more efficiency and greater competition in the marketplace, but that is not true. The employers are the only people who profit from the growth in part-time work. It is regrettable that from 1975-89 there was an increase of 10,500 part-time workers in the workplace. There are now 82,000 people in part-time employment. Maybe there are cases in which it can be justified that people should be employed on a part-time basis such as where there are peaks during certain hours of the day or where it may not be necessary to maintain full-time staff round the clock. Some service industries have pressure periods which warrant the recruitment of part-time staff but it is now being used as a device to avoid employing full-time staff. At present relays of part-time staff cover the whole working day, which is the unacceptable side of part-time work. It is highly organised by employers to avoid paying workers their full entitlements. This means that taxpayers bear the burden of social welfare payments which arise from people being employed on a part-time basis. The Minister has not addressed this and everything should be done to discourage further growth in part-time employment.

I do not accept the Minister's explanation for having an eight hour threshold or that he is bound by a directive from Europe. If there is a threshold it means that the floodgates are still open. The Minister should have grasped the nettle and got rid of the eight hour threshold. I do not deny that he has gone a considerable distance down that road but he did not convince all the social partners — particularly the FIE — that there was a need to abolish this injustice in the workplace.

The Minister said that the classic part-time worker is a female aged 25-44. It is a misuse of language to refer to "a classic part-time worker". What does he mean? Have we identified women between the ages of 25-44 as the exploited section of the community? Is that what the Minister means by "classic"? I do not see anything classical about being in part-time work with little or no protection. I know the Minister is trying to do something about the problem but he has not done enough.

The Minister also stated that the major benefit of part-time work in business is that it provides flexibility, allowing the employer to respond to the increased competition and the changing demand of customers. Many employers treat their employees fairly according to the rules but they have to compete with the shysters who exploit part-time workers to the full. The Minister said that, in this respect, Ireland's position is comparable with that of Britain where, of course, part-time work is much more widespread. Why not compare us with Germany or Holland, with the developed economies of Europe? Why pick Britain?

Mr. B. Ahern

Holland is also mentioned.

Mr. T. O'Sullivan

We have been identified by the Council of Europe as the industrial blackspot regarding social entitlements for workers. We should be identified with the more progressive countries.

Mr. B. Ahern

We are still the lowest——

Mr. T. O'Sullivan

The Council of Europe has identified Ireland and the United Kingdom as the two countries which do not provide a decent standard for part-time workers. The Minister also said these developments helped to maintain competitiveness and create jobs. However, it has been proved beyond doubt that part-time work does not create jobs, it creates profits.

We will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage. We welcome the Bill, with all its faults, as a step in the right direction. It is a feeble Bill and I hope that, between now and Committee Stage, the Minister will also table amendments. If he does not, I sincerely hope he will accept amendments from this side of the House.

Mr. Rabbitte

The Workers' Party have campaigned for many years for legislation to protect part-time workers because we recognise that this is an area of widespread exploitation and abuse of good employment practices.

We used our first opportunity, as Deputy O'Sullivan remarked, of Private Members' Business, to introduce the Protection of Part-Time Workers (Employment No. 2) Bill, 1989, which was designed to tackle the exploitation of low paid workers who happen to be predominantly women. Unfortunately, the Bill was voted down at the end of Second Stage by the Government and the Minister for Labour, Deputy Ahern, undertook to bring forward Government legislation. I take the opportunity to acknowledge that the Minister has been as good as his word and brought forward a Bill which I am happy to welcome. This Bill is a major step in the right direction, it does not go as far as The Workers' Party Bill but it should, when enacted, prevent all but the more ruthless employers from exploiting low paid workers with the same ease and impunity as heretofore.

The Bill will see the extension to a great many — but not all — part-time workers of the important protective legislation — seven Acts in all — to which the Minister referred. These are the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, the Holidays (Employees) Act, the Worker Participation (State Enterprises) Acts, the Unfair Dismissals Act, the Maternity Protection of Employees Act and the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Acts.

The Bill introduces the untried legal concept of regular part-time, defined as a worker who has been in continuous service of the employer for at least 13 weeks and who works a minimum of eight hours per week. On the face of it this must be seen as substantial progress on the present threshold of 18 hours which is so widely abused by employers. This concept of regular part-time work is central to the legislation and in principle, warrants our support. However, I am concerned about the definition in the Bill which essentially requires two things. The definition section refers to "regular part-time", in relation to an employee under a relevant enactment as meaning an employee who works for an employer and who (a) has been in the continuous service of the employer for not less than 13 weeks, and (b) is normally expected to work not less than eight hours a week for that employer. Fifteen years of dealing with employers have taught me that there are no limits to the ingenuity of a minority of employers when it comes to ripping off the system or avoiding their responsibilities under the law.

Accordingly, I must conclude that the continous service requirement will be abused by the worst employers; in other words, legal advisers will be working overtime to introduce new contracts which will automatically expire before the 13 weeks' continuous service as defined in relation to the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973 is exhausted. Indeed, this abuse crept in widely in the Thatcher-Reagan culture of the eighties, where workers were increasingly employed on fixed contracts deliberately designed to avoid legal objections. In other words, if the 12 months' continuous service confers rights on a worker under, say, the Unfair Dismissals Act, then the fixed contract runs for a period of, say, 11 months and is often renewable. This insidious practice has been imported into the State service itself. In the health services there are from time to time not hundreds but thousands of fixed contract workers.

The current threshold of 18 hours is being widely abused. For example, on last night's Adjournment debate Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the Leader of The Workers' Party, Deputy Proinsias De Rossa, raising the strike at River Valley Products in his constituency and highlighting the disgraceful replacement of regular part-time women workers by lowly paid male workers recruited through FÁS. However, the relevant point is that the part-time workers concerned were employed for 17.5 hours per week, thus missing out on their proper entitlements under the legislation we have referred to in this debate. Unfortunately, this ruse by employers is widespread in certain types of employment and there can be no question but that the new threshold of eight hours will make the exploitative employer's task more difficult. However, it is a combination of the hours threshold and the requirement of continuous service that will provide the bad employer with the escape hatch.

The Workers' Party will argue on Committee Stage that it is necessary to import the concept of cumulative service from our social welfare legislation into this Bill. For example, if an employee was required to have cumulative service of not less than 13 weeks in any half year, then the employer bent on avoiding his obligations under the law would be further constrained. Deputy Shatter's contribution reminded me to quote the remarks by Congress on this point:

The definition of continuity of service laid down in the First Schedule of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973, does not take account of the insecure nature of part-time employment. Congress believes that the definition contained in the Redundancy Acts is more appropriate and should be adopted in this Bill. This would provide that employment could be taken to be continuous if an employee is dismissed before attaining the qualifying period of service (in this case 13 weeks) but resumes employment with the same employer within 26 weeks.

I congratulate the Minister and welcome this legislation, but this requirement is central. The Minister says the definition in the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act has worked very well. That is true but, as Congress says, to apply that in the case of part-time workers does not allow for the insecurity and the practices that are rife in the area of part-time work.

I presume the Minister is referring to the First Schedule of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act, 1973; section 1 of that First Schedule provides that, the service of an employee in his employment shall be deemed to be continuous unless that service is terminated by (a) the dismissal of the employee by his employer, or (b) the employee voluntarily leaving his employment. Section 6 of that Schedule provides that, the continuous service of an employee in his employment shall not be broken by the dismissal of the employee by his employer followed by the immediate reemployment of that employee. I presume that is a central point on which the Minister is hanging his case. I think I understand it, but I am not so sure it will work well in the area we are talking about.

I would like the Minister in his reply to address the question whether it governs fixed contract employment. What is preventing an employer, knowing now that the law has been changed and that there is new legislation which confers certain rights on any worker who has 13 weeks' continuous employment, from designing a system of contracts where a worker is taken on on the basis of a 12 week or three month fixed contract and then reemploying that worker after a reasonable period? There seems to be nothing to prevent that.

We know this is a fairly wide practice under the Unfair Dismissals Act. That Act requires service of one year — 12 months — and it is regularly the case that employers now employ workers on a fixed contract of 11 months. This practice is prevalent even in the health services. One of the last major involvements I had in the health services was the attempt to renegotiate this question of temporary staff in the health services, to confer certain rights on temporary workers who had been in the health services over a prolonged period.

I am concerned that the more ruthless employers — they are in the minority — who are always seeking to exploit this kind of loophole will take advantage of it. However, there is a topical example. There has been a trade dispute in Finglas for two months and the union, the Labour Relations Commission and the Minister have largely confessed their helplessness to resolve it. That is a classic example that highlights how the employer went out of his way to employ workers for 17.5 hours per week because, had he employed them for 18 hours per week they would have been entitled to certain rights, benefits and entitlements under various labour legislation. That is a common practice and I fear that under the new legislation the worst employers will get around this question of a continuous service requirement.

We ought to take on board the input from Congress who suggest that the Redundancy Payments Acts, for example, may be a better yardstick to apply or, as I recommended on behalf of The Workers' Party, we import into this legislation the notion of cumulative service that exists in social welfare legislation where somebody over a period of, say, half a year would have to have 13 weeks' service in order to qualify. This area is central to the Bill and deserves to be looked at.

I am also concerned by section 1 (3) (b) of the Bill which gives the Minister power by order to amend the definition of "regular part-time" by altering either or both the minimum number of weeks of continuous service and the minimum number of hours required to be worked. I do not question the bona fides of the Minister's intentions in this regard, and I am sure that in reply he will say his purpose is to leave it open to him to improve this situation in the years ahead, but I am concerned at the prospect of a lobby being whipped up by employers and their representatives in this House — although unless Deputy Wyse takes on that mantle nobody so far has professed to be speaking on behalf of the employers; I am not ashamed to speak on behalf of the workers — to have the threshold altered to the detriment of workers.

I am concerned that that subsection allows inordinate pressure to be brought to bear on the Minister of the day to cause it to be changed for any one of a number of reasons I can readily envisage. The Workers' Party would have preferred, as expressed in our own Bill, the complete abolition of the minimum threshold of hours worked for protection by labour legislation, and to extend pro rata to all part-time workers the protection of all such legislation. In this regard we note the support of the Employment Equality Agency for complete abolition, as expressed in the publication by the Employment Equality Agency of its major report on part-time working entitled Who Needs Flexibility by Dr. Eileen Drew of Trinity College. At the launch of that valuable comprehensive report the chairperson of the Employment Equality Agency, Ms. Catherine McGuinness said:

Employers' demand for part-time working is related to factors like skill and labour shortages and the need to meet peaks in demand for labour particularly in the service sector. There is little or no evidence to support the argument that the inclusion of these workers in labour legislation protection would lessen this demand or cut off the supply.

I agree with that conclusion. The demands of the marketplace bear it out. Managers in banks and supermarkets who were surveyed for the employment equality study confirmed that the principal factor affecting future demand for part-time workers is customer demand for extended hours of opening and the need to meet peaks in demand for services. As Ms. McGuinness said:

This report highlights the fact that it is women who are principally affected by trends in part-time working; making up as they do 69% (60,000 out of 87,000 workers) of part-time workers, and this makes the issue of protection of part-time workers an equality issue.

The Employment Equality Agency report also showed that working mothers with three or more children made up over 30 per cent of all women working part-time in 1988. In the same year 50 per cent of all women part-time workers as against 9 per cent of married men part-time workers cited family responsibilities as the main reason for working part-time. There is no doubt that the protection of part-time workers is indeed an equality issue. The Minister's figures bear this out. Indeed the authoritative study for the Minister's Department and the IPC, by John Blackwell, concluded that in respect of 1987, for example, 72 per cent of all regular part-time workers were female. The number of part-time workers in the labour force has almost doubled in the last ten years and the current ICTU estimate is that there are about 100,000 regular and occasional part-time workers in the workforce at the moment.

The Minister dealt with the question of the working conditions of part-time workers and said that it would be wrong to equate part-time with precarious or substandard jobs. He said that there is some empirical evidence nonetheless in Ireland that the hourly earnings of part-time workers tend to be below those of their full-time equivalents. That is the understatement of the debate so far. I agree that it would be wrong to equate all part-time work with substandard or precarious jobs. I know that a number of employments provide good part-time employment but there is a lot of empirical evidence to show that the hourly earnings of part-time workers tend to be a great deal less than their full-time equivalents.

The Minister referred to the research by the ESRI which showed that the people affected were predominantly women. It is women who are exploited most seriously, women in the main, who are forced to go out to work because of long term endemic unemployment in the home. But for the opportunity for part-time work that exists in my constituency, the poverty that is endemic in certain pockets of my constituency would be far worse.

To underline my point, I would refer to a paper delivered to a Combat Poverty Agency conference by my SIPTU colleague, economist Rosheen Callendar. She said, as quoted by me at column 1284, volume 397, of the Official Report of 27 March 1990:

One of the main effects of the continuing exclusion of part-time workers from the scope of most existing protective legislation ... 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 disproportionate to the rewards for full-time working and the discrepancy can in no way be accounted for solely by the difference 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.

The Minister would probably agree with that. It is a fairly savage indictment of the difference in the pro rata payment of part-time workers as compared to full-time workers. It leads to the most desperate consequences. Purely because it is topical, I will take the case of the strike which is under way. Workers like that have no rights. They work because they must, to put bread on the table, and not for pin money which might be a feature in some of the better off areas of the city. Once they become unemployed, as they can become at the drop of a hat, they have no entitlements and when they are no longer able to perform the duties in question, they have no benefits. I accept that this legislation goes a long way in tackling that phenomenon but I am concerned and I will be seeking to address in the form of amendments some of the points I have made.

Deputy Shatter raised the question of the responsibility of the trade union movement in this area, and said that having regard to the performance of some trade union members he would advise women workers affected in this way to stay one million miles away from named trade union leaders who were involved, in a fashion that did not reflect any credit on them, in a couple of equality issues. That is to exaggerate the circumstances of one or two isolated cases. I do not think one can draw any general conclusion from the particularly backward decisions of one or two trade union leaders in the past in terms of their management of their industrial relations affairs. It is not fair to the trade union movement. The trade union movement has attempted to tackle this problem. Anybody who has an appreciation of how difficult it is to tackle problems in the industrial relations context will understand what I am saying.

I am sorry to keep referring to the dispute Deputy O'Sullivan brought up but what, for example, is the trade union movement supposed to do in the context of the River Valley Products dispute, where the employer concerned has no regard for the Labour Relations Commission and will not meet the trade union involved? Unfortunately, the use of "scab labour", which is probably unfair, although it is the traditional trade union word — they are probably in the main people who are desperate for employment in present conditions — enabling that factory to work. In that circumstance it is very difficult for the trade union movement to do anything effective to tackle the conditions of the part-time workers concerned. That is a phenomenon the trade union movement comes up against time and time again. In the industries or trades where this problem is most concentrated it is extremely and exceptionally difficult for the trade union movement effectively to tackle it without inflicting greater hardship in the process on the people who are affected.

Having regard to the fact that it is a growing phenomenon, in the sense that it is a growing section of the workforce, and predictions would seem to suggest that it is going to become more so in the future, the trade union movement will have to consider how well geared it is to confront this problem. It is true that the incidence of trade union organisation amongst low paid part-time workers is very low. Perhaps the trade union movement needs to gear itself for a different approach in terms of trying to offer protection to workers who are amongst the most exploited and vulnerable in the workforce.

The report prepared for the National Pensions Board by Donal Dinneen entitled Changing Employment Patterns in Ireland states:

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.

The report goes on to say:

...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.

I can readily understand why that is the case, because from a commercial and economic point of view it makes perfect sense for employers to employ part-time staff as it gives them far greater flexibility. If that is the situation, it is fair to make the point that the trade union movement, having regard to the very serious equality dimension of this issue, should gear itself to deal with the matter more aggressively.

The traditional stance of the Federation of Irish Employers on this has always puzzled me. I welcome the fact that their response to this Bill has been relatively muted. I have never been able to understand why the FIE should feel it incumbent on themselves to defend the appalling practices of worst employers in this regard, even in terms of their own family and employers. It is only putting good employers at a competitive disadvantage to be upholding the disgraceful practices applied by worst employers. If their relative silence on this conveys that they have recently realised this dimension of it, that is to be welcomed.

Like the other spokespersons, I will be anxious to see that the progress of this Bill through the remaining Stages is expedited and that it becomes law as quickly as possible. It is an important progressive measure. I have reservations about some aspects of it, as I have outlined. I hope the Minister on Committee Stage will look at the merits of amendments put forward in a serious way.

I do not want to take up the time of the House in putting on the record again several instances I recalled when introducing The Workers' Party Bill on the same issue some months ago. It is only by demonstrating to the House in anecdotal fashion that the horror of the problem confronting many workers is brought home. I took the opportunity at that time to put on the record of the House a great many examples of cases that were brought to me. These cases bear rereading to show the dilemma that confronts a great many workers, especially in present market conditions. I will refer briefly to one case that I regard as typical. It is from a 19 year old woman worker which was handed to me on the night the Bill was introduced. It states:

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.

That about sums up the circumstances that confront a great number of young workers, especially young women workers.

Then there is the contract area where this problem proliferates. The contract cleaning industry is notorious for it. I worry that the Minister feels it necessary to introduce thresholds. I am reminded of what happened in the contract cleaning industry following the implementation of the employment equality directive. At that time a cushion payment of £50 a week was introduced by the Minister for Social Welfare. In other words a woman could earn £50 a week before her husband, who was unemployed, took a commensurate reduction in whatever benefit he was receiving. If she earned more than £50 a week he would lose a great deal more, making it a catch 22 situation for his wife. I was dealing with the contract cleaning industry at the time and throughout that industry they contrived a situation where, notwithstanding the fact that there was a JLC increase, the workers concerned did not go beyond the £50 level. The unfortunate women caught in that trap could not accept £52 or £53 because if they did, their husbands in receipt of unemployment assistance would lose ten times as much. Speaking from memory, I think there would have been approximately a £26 reduction in the husband's unemployment assistance payment. That is an example of the type of problems you have when you introduce thresholds, employers seek to evade their responsibilities by fiddling around with the figures.

Finally, the major omission of the Bill is the question of pay. It is all very well and proper, and indeed welcome, that we should confer on what are now described as regular part-time workers meeting these minimum requirements, the same rights in terms of protective labour legislation as apply to other workers, but we are not tackling the poverty question to which Deputy O'Sullivan referred. While it is welcome that part-time workers have the same protection as other workers, they will still be working for a pittance, as a young worker described it, in a great many cases because the JLCs to which I referred already in a different instance, are not sufficiently efficacious in producing a minimum reasonable standard of living. By the very process in which they are negotiated, the level is set at very much the bare minimum employers can get away with. There is the necessity for the Minister to confront the question of minimum pay. The introduction of a statutory minimum hourly rate would at least tackle some of the worst cases, even if it was pitched at a very reasonable level. It is instructive, as Deputy O'Sullivan said, to have a look at the practice in other countries where such minimum pay legislation exists. The entire system has not come crashing down. The system seems to be able to absorb it and it has certainly meant an improvement in the living conditions of the workers caught in a low pay trap.

I am happy to welcome this Bill. It is a major step forward and I hope it is enacted as quickly as possible.

Dr. Hillery

I join in welcoming this progressive legislation. It is an entirely adequate response to changing needs and the changes in participation in the labour force. It is now clear that 20,000 regular part-time workers will for the first time have a range of statutory entitlements that are now enjoyed by full-timers. The threshold of 18 hours, the minimum up to now, will be reduced to eight hours. As the Minister indicated earlier, this is ahead of the thinking and practice in a number of European countries.

The Bill, as we know, will benefit women in particular. Three-quarters of the 70,000 regular part-time workers in the economy at present are women and those women are mostly married. At present 20,000 part-time workers work fewer than 18 hours per week thus 20,000 of the 70,000 will now be entitled to protection, terms of redundancy, minimum notice, worker participation, unfair dismissals, maternity leave and employer insolvency, together with holidays.

It is worth looking briefly at the scale of the part-time work issue. Ireland, in common with other European countries, has an increasing proportion of part-time workers. The regular part-time worker population in this country doubled to its present level of 70,000 from 1977 to 1989. A positive point should be made here and that is that the growth of part-time work is actually providing job opportunities for women. That is the positive development and is an interesting way of looking at it.

The Minister in introducing legislation has the overall responsibility of striking a balance — the balance in this instance between providing a range of entitlements and statutory protections for part-time workers while at the same time not discouraging the development of part-time work which is an important outlet for female participation in jobs. Part-time work obviously suits many, especially women with their family and domestic roles. One might argue that it is because of the uneven distribution of the work in the home that many women cannot work full-time. A further point was made that while there are some women who engage in part-time work for pin money — they are a tiny minority — typically women go to work to help with the family budget and to meet basic needs. They are literally keeping the bread on the table. The Bill gives flexibility, with statutory entitlements for women who want to work fewer than 18 hours a week. In future they will have to work only eight hours upwards to qualify for these benefits, side by side with providing the competitive edge for employers who need flexibility particularly in working hours to meet customer demand. It has been said already that there is a shift in employment from manufacturing industry to the services industry which lends itself to part-time work. Part-time work seems to be essential for the growth of services and this in turn opens up opportunities for women on a part-time basis. Much of this is, of course, a recent development. The eighties were characterised by intensive international and domestic competition, recession, charging technology and so forth. That has brought a focus on costs unparalleled in the past and, in particular, on labour costs which are now getting a high priority in the costs of production of the goods or services. The employment pattern is that there is still quite a number although we would like to see more, of full-time conventional jobs but a growing part-time component. Survival and growth are necessary for jobs, be they full-time or part-time.

The Bill goes a long way towards meeting the requirements of part-time workers and employer needs for flexibility at this point. Part-time work is here to stay. It is the pattern for the future. Today, we are addressing the social implications for and needs of part-time workers and in that sense this Bill is particularly progressive. There has been exploitation of part-time workers and the Bill is designed to go a long way towards meeting this exploitation particularly in relation to holiday entitlements.

We can criticise any Minister introducing legislation but in this instance the Minister has to be careful in not overregulating the labour market to the point where he might introduce disincentives which in turn might reduce part-time job opportunities and, therefore, jobs for women. There are many employments — supermarkets spring to mind — where the demand for their products is concentrated in the last three days of the week. I know, for example, of a supermarket chain where 5 per cent of their sales occur on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and 95 per cent of the sales are on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It goes without saying that that labour force has to be made up of a core of full-time workers and a sizeable number of part-time workers, many women, to meet the peak demand of the last three days of the week. The Minister has struck an equitable balance between employer needs and employee needs in the part-time area.

It is worth recalling — and it is again an indication of the change that has taken place — that there was a logical basis for the 18 hour minimum when it was introduced. The idea then was to exclude incidental or subsidiary working. The nub of the matter now is that there are 20,000 part-time workers who have not got the range of entitlements I mentioned and who will get them under this Bill. The eight hours is in line with the best practice in other European countries and ahead of a number of them within the Community. I suppose it is a measure, given the support the Bill has got here in this House this morning, of the care the Minister has taken and the exhaustive discussions in which he and his officials engaged with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Federation of Irish Employers, the peak organisations, in striving to reach a consensus, to frame a workable piece of legislation as we now have before us. I would like to compliment the Minister, therefore, for the patience and skill he has shown in this area and in other areas in his search for consensus backed up by the expertise of his officials.

The Minister referred to the complementary action taken in respect of part-time workers by the Minister for Social Welfare. The Minister for Social Welfare, in a major development of the PRSI system has now brought 21,000 part-time workers into the social welfare system, 17,000 of whom are women, many of them, again, in low paid jobs. They will be able to claim weekly payments for illness, for maternity and for unemployment and, eventually, they will be entitled to pensions, the type of protection that is obviously needed under a variety of headings. While the 18 hour minimum applied in the case of the social welfare system as well, the actual alteration there is not to the number of hours but to the income levels, so those earning £40 a week or upwards will be entitled to these social welfare benefits in future.

The Bill before us and the PRSI changes will be of particular benefit to women who work in my constituency. My constituency of Dún Laoghaire is characterised by a wide range of services, supermarkets, hairdressing establishments, shops, a lot of retail activity and a lot of part-time workers who are mostly women who will now benefit from both measures.

There is quite a bit of debate internationally on the dual workforce idea, this idea of having a core of permanent highly skilled workers with an attractive range of fringe benefits and side by side with them what some writers describe as a peripheral workforce, low status, low income and so on. We do not necessarily have to accept that conceptual distinction, but what we do know is that these people in low status, low paid jobs need protection, and the Bill faces up to those needs today.

Reference has been made by the previous speaker to the research work done by both John Blackwell of UCD and Eileen Drew of Trinity College. I would like to compliment both researchers for the valuable basic research they have done and which obviously leads to the better formulation of policies. It is a valuable factor in policy formulation and is an example of the research conducted by universities into the policy making area. Eileen Drew, drawing on the literature and practice elsewhere, refers to the fact that it is not only women, although mainly women, who are part-time workers. There are people who are nearing retirement or who have retired and who can very constructively avoid the shock of sudden retirement and ease their way with part-time work. Indeed the 1988 figure for males over 65 shows that 12 per cent of them were part-time workers in 1988.

There is also the important benefit for those who work part-time of commuting to work. They avoid peak hours and, in that sense, it is like flexi-time. There is lower pay for part-time workers as compared with full-time workers and that can be a disadvantage for individual part-time people. A further concern is that there is a very small number of part-time workers in high quality jobs in the professions, for example, although I am glad to note in this instance that there are people like solicitors and doctors, female solicitors and doctors in particular, who now have an opportunity to work part-time during the week. I think this is a very welcome trend. First of all, it provides an outlet for people with this high level of expertise to participate in the workforce and, furthermore, it means that the State investment, that is, the tax investment in their education when they were pursuing their professional courses, is returned to the economy to some extent.

As far as employers are concerned, the flexibility arguments holds a lot of substance. There is increased competition which means extending hours, and with customer demand that is important; companies typically have to respond to customer needs. One could argue from the employer viewpoint that part-time work reduces costs. At a minimum it means they do not have to pay overtime to their full-time employees.

I want to refer briefly to the European experience. I barely touched on it already. It is a fact that part-time working is growing in all European countries. As a percentage of the labour force it ranges from a minimum of 2.5 per cent in Spain right up to 29.4 per cent in the Netherlands. In the UK it is 22.8 per cent of the labour force and in Ireland we are still well down the league, although about halfway up the European average nonetheless, at 8.5 per cent. The majority of part-time workers are obviously women. In West Germany, for example, 93 per cent of part-time workers are women, while the figure for Ireland is 75 per cent.

How do women in particular feel about this? The research shows that most women in part-time work have a decided preference for part-time work. There is, however, an important minority of women who would wish to have full-time work but cannot actually secure it. I mentioned already that one reason that women are not available for full-time work is that there is an uneven burden of household duties, especially in the 25 to 44 age bracket, the child rearing age. It is impractical for them to fulfil both roles, the full-time job at home and the full-time job in the conventional labour force.

Manufacturing industries which have been characterised by full-time jobs, and this is true here as well as in Europe, are diminishing in numbers. Services are growing and there is a demand there for part-time work. The impact of part-time work means that employers have numerical flexibility and that they are able to manage their workforce most effectively to meet their needs. The European Commission is clearly concerned about abuses and exploitation in the part-time work area. It is a fact that where legislation does not exist there is the opportunity, if one wants to put it that way, for abuse by employers. It is easier to recruit and dismiss part-time employees if they are not covered by employment legislation. Deputy Rabbitte fairly made the point that many employers who employ part-time workers are in fact fair but there are of course a number, a minority, who offend in this respect.

Part-time work, then, is here to stay. It is a question of facing up to that reality in the labour force. We, as Members of the Oireachtas, in the course of this debate and in enacting this legislation, will be making an important contribution to meeting the social implications of part-time work. As legislators, we have an obligation to protect part-time workers who are mainly women in lower paid jobs. This is our contribution in this regard. Furthermore, we will have an opportunity of debating very shortly legislation in the context of social insurance for part-time workers. Indeed the Minister for Social Welfare has already signed the regulations in this respect.

Again I want to say that the Minister has struck a fair balance. He avoids over-regulation of the labour market and thereby avoids the risk of reducing part-time job opportunities so obviously needed by women. Furthermore it provides the flexibility for employers to meet their labour costs and their financial needs and to run their business properly, which, in turn means jobs are more secure, be they full-time or part-time.

The Bill obviously should act as a stimulus to more part-time work with the necessary safeguards built in. It is worth making the point, of course, that the statutory protection for part-time workers in most European countries where it has been introduced has not adversely affected the labour market. I feel the Bill is an appropriate response to the rapid growth of part-time work. It is an enlightened step forward and I wish it a speedy passage through the House.

Mrs. T. Ahearn

I welcome this Bill because it proposes the extension to part-time workers of the benefits of the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, the Holidays (Employers) Act, 1973, the Worker Participation (State Enterprises) Acts, 1977 and 1988, the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, and the Maternity (Protection of Employees) Act, 1981. I welcome the main thrust of the Bill in that it gives equal rights to part-time workers. The Bill is urgently needed because part-time workers are the most abused and exploited section of our workforce. For too long part-time workers have been vulnerable to exploitation. However sterling or honourable their service, they were open at all times to dismissal, they had no basic legal protection, they had no appeals mechanisms in the case of dismissal and they had no redundancy payments.

The Bill, thankfully, will ultimately provide protection and equality to our part-time workers. The Bill cannot be considered in isolation from developments at European Community level. In June 1990 the European Commission issued three draft directives on part-time, temporary, seasonal and agency workers who work at least eight hours per week. It is essential therefore that our Irish legislation incorporates the clearly defined obligations arising under EC legislation.

Section 1 defines a regular part-time worker as one who has been in the continuous service of an employer for at least 13 weeks and is working for at least eight hours per week. This reduction in the weekly threshold from 18 hours to eight hours represents a substantial improvement in the conditions of employees who work for at least 18 hours per week. It can, however, be argued that the general eight hour threshold does present a slight anomaly. I will point out the manner in which I feel this arises. In a 40-hour week eight hours represents 20 per cent of the total. Take, for example, a teacher who works 22 class hours per week, eight hours for that teacher represents 36 per cent of the total hours required in order to become eligible under this legislation. This is a slight contradiction and it should be examined more closely on Committee Stage.

It is estimated that 68 per cent of all male part-time employees and 72 per cent of all female part-time employees work less than the current 18 hour threshold. These figures clearly demonstrate the importance of this Bill. The implementation of the eight hour threshold per week may be subject to abuse by employers who may now wish to employ people for less than eight hours per week in order to avoid being caught by this legislation. Steps must be taken by the Minister and his Department to minimise the occasions of this abuse. The Department of Labour must carry out careful monitoring of part-time workers and so be in a position to judge if their hours of work are reduced when this legislation is implemented. Employees who, after the legislation is implemented, are abused in that their hours are reduced below the eight hour threshold must have recourse to an employment appeals tribunal or to some other agency where their case can be examined. This is one means whereby abuse and manipulation of this legislation can be minimised. It must be minimised if this Bill is to be effective and, therefore, such a tribunal should be made available.

Employers criticise the Bill because the legislation comes into effect after 13 weeks of continuous employment. They feel that 13 weeks cannot be considered regular and that the period should be extended. I believe 13 weeks is a reasonable time in which to become recognised as a regular part-time worker. It enables a person to qualify under this legislation and it is the statutory requirement in all European countries in order to be termed a regular part-time worker.

My main criticism of the Bill is that it fails to recognise one very important feature of part-time employment today, the prevalence of contract and agency work. The Bill must be amended to provide that an employer means the person by whom the employee is employed under a contract of employment, or the person who secures the services of an employee, through a contract with an employment agency or otherwise.

Regarding contract employment I am both amazed and disturbed at the amount of contract employment being offered today by our universities, regional technical colleges and State bodies — Trinity College, UCD, UCC and the regional colleges. More recently I have been amazed that An Bord Glas are offering marketing and development executive positions on a contract basis. The future of An Bord Glas does not look bright if they do not see fit to provide permanent employment in this badly needed area of horticultural development.

I cannot understand the reason our universities and our colleges are going down the road of contract work. They, above all, should be setting the lead by providing permanent employment. The provisions of this Bill must provide for employment offered on a contract basis because the disadvantages for one employed on a contract basis are many. They have no security of tenure, no hope of promotion, no pension rights and no hope of making any long term personal decisions. It is totally unfair to offer highly qualified people an opportunity only of contract work. They are in no position to buy a house or make any financial commitments because the work is for a period of only two to three years. The area of contract work will have to be examined closely because it is increasing rapidly and we must remember the disadvantages for the person involved.

The Bill will mean that employers of regular part-time workers will have increased financial costs, particularly those related to holiday pay. They will also have a significant element of organisational cost associated with the inclusion of all part-time employees under the Maternity (Protection of Employees) Act, 1981. Employers may consider these to be impractical and inefficient but I believe such benefits as holiday pay, annual leave and maternity benefit must be extended to part-time workers. After all, women constitute 70 per cent of the acknowledged workforce but in reality that percentage is much higher. For too long women who became pregnant were not protected from dismissal, neither were they entitled to any maternity leave nor did they have their job secured and open for them when they were available to return to work. This was totally undesirable, it screams with inequity.

I welcome the fact that all regular part-time workers will be entitled to the minimum 14 weeks maternity leave enjoyed by all other female workers in employment. I welcome also the fact that their jobs will remain open for them on their return to work. This provision is welcome not only by me but by the entire female workforce.

As we move down the road of trying to end inequities in one area we should take this opportunity to end other inequities. In this regard I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the lack of maternity leave for adoptive parents. This is an area of gross discrimination and legislation must be introduced to provide equality for adoptive parents. Adoptive parents need time to build up a bonding relationship with the child. They need to establish a sound, secure relationship and they should be entitled to the same maternity leave as the natural mother. I plead with the Minister to look sympathetically and realistically at this matter because the majority of mothers work today. The adoptive mother who, perhaps, has gone through enormous trauma and stress of waiting to be considered eligible for a child can be placed in the position where she almost feels forced to leave work so that she can give secure and loving care to her adopted child. Adoptive mothers are the same as natural mothers and our legislation must recognise them as such by providing that they are entitled to 14 weeks maternity leave. I plead with the Minister to be sympathetic in his approach to adoptive mothers and to extend a maternity leave entitlement to them as quickly as possible.

Perhaps this is the time when we should also look at the issue of paternity leave. Generally speaking, most mothers spend two or three days in hospital before they return home to look after their newly born child. When they come home they have to cope with the demands of their new born child while, at the same time, they are recovering from a nine month's pregnancy. They need the support of their partners at this time. If fathers were allowed to take three or four weeks paternity leave it would help to eliminate much of the strain and stress endured by mothers in coping with their newly born children without the support of their partners. In order to ensure harmonious and stable family relationships at this crucial period fathers should be entitled to avail of paternity leave.

It is important that the Bill gives employers flexibility in a changing industrial, commercial and economic climate. As the demands of customers change rapidly this legislation should not hinder — I do not believe it will — firms which wish to employ more staff to meet peak seasonal requirements. I hope one of the positive aspects of this Bill is that employers, rather than taking on employees on a regular part-time basis, will see the benefits of long term employment instead. This would be a welcome outcome of the legislation.

I am convinced that the Bill does not provide for amendments to the Social Welfare Acts. I believe it is intended to extend full social welfare insurance cover to part-time workers generally from 6 April 1991. There will be significant costs involved in this for both the employer and employee. There will be a significant difference between class J which applies to part-time workers of less than 18 hours and class A which applies to full-time employees, whether temporary or permanent. The extension of this cover would mean an increase of 11.7 per cent for employers in pay roll costs for each employee. This would place a considerable burden on firms which employ many part-time staff. It would also mean a reduction of between 3 per cent and 5.5 per cent in the take home pay of employees. Most part-time employees work to supplement their incomes and we must accept that their take home pay is the most important factor to them. I am worried that the Bill, as presented, may force many part-time workers into the black economy. This could happen in two ways — employers may employ people for fewer than eight hours per week and employees who believe that their take home pay is being squeezed by taxation may resort to the black economy.

I also have some reservations about the section dealing with annual leave. As the calculation for annual leave allows for entitlement to proportions of six hours per 100 hours worked, the Bill must include a provision for the rounding off of figures; otherwise, annual leave for periods of minutes will be earned. This would be difficult for both employers and employees and may lead to a total breakdown in worker-employer relationships, resulting in disputes, strikes, walk-outs, etc. The bill must ensure at all times that there is a good healthy relationship between employers and employees based on fair, clear and direct guidelines. It is important that this issue is dealt with on Committee Stage.

I welcome the Bill in general terms. I have already referred to my reservations about it. I am concerned at the massive potential for major abuse of the legislation which would make the lot of part-time workers worse and reduce the potential for part-time employment. Nevertheless, I believe improvements can be made in the Bill to minimise the opportunities of such abuse. This Bill is a positive step forward in improving the conditions of part-time workers. I welcome any legislation which will ensure security, protection and, above all, equal rights for part-time workers. We must recognise that the Bill will place additional costs, both in financial and organisational terms, on employers. I hope the reservations expressed by the Federation of Irish Employers will be considered by the Minister between now and Committee Stage.

The Bill is, above all, about equality and will ultimately lead to an improvement in the conditions of part-time workers. I welcome the Bill. I hope its introduction will lead to a more regulated part-time workforce and will give them the security and rights which they not only deserve but to which they are entitled.

Mr. Wyse

I welcome the Bill which will enhance the working conditions of part-time employees and gives them the protection which they did not have heretofore. It confers on them a flow of legal rights which were previously available to permanent employees only.

The interpretation and definition of a regular part-time employee is one who has been in the continuous service of the employer for at least 13 weeks and is normally expected to work at least eight hours a week. This is a far reaching definition and will cover the vast majority of current part-time employees, of which 80 per cent are women and 30 per cent are under the age of 25. Under EC law, the completion of the Internal Market must lead to an improvement in living and working conditions in the European Community. This process must result from an approximation of conditions, particularly the conditions in regard to part-time work, temporary work and seasonal work. This Bill will go some way towards meeting our obligations under EC law. It will also provide a charter and a flow of fundamental social rights for workers, particularly part-time workers.

Part-time work, temporary work and seasonal work are here to stay. The growing importance of these forms of employment is explained by the fact that they meet the real needs of firms which require greater flexibility in the organisation and operation of their companies. They are more flexible in the utilisation of manpower in order to respond more efficiently to stronger international competition. In addition, these different forms of employment relationships seem to satisfy better the aspirations of individual and family needs of a number of workers. In other words, these employment relationships constitute a means for utilising production capacities to the full while in many cases they can provide (a) an alternative to unemployment and (b) an appropriate response to different family situations.

The stance adopted by the Irish labour market to working parents essentially translates into a demand that family life should be flexible enough to deal with the demands of paid work and never vice versa. It is noted surprisingly, therefore, that a large number of workers leave the labour market because of family responsibilities. It is not surprising, in the context of the traditional society roles of men and women, that the overwhelming majority of those leavers are women. Part-time work, on the other hand, offers a degree of flexibility, which means that the combination of work and family responsibilities is more versatile and, consequently, the majority of part-time workers are women. The sex based imbalance in the profile of part-time working in Ireland, therefore, makes the issue of part-time working an equality issue.

For too long, part-time workers have been ignored by labour legislation and have effectively been treated as a shaded sector of the Irish labour market. Trends towards increasing levels of part-time employment throughout the EC have been observed for some time and the Employment Equality Agency are committed to focusing attention on that sector so that full-time protection and provision is afforded to workers engaged in such employment. I believe this Bill will go a long way in meeting the Employment Equality Agency's objectives. This, together with the recent provisions announced by the Minister for Social Welfare in extending limited welfare cover to part-time workers, is also to be welcomed as a step in the right direction in offering protection to part-time workers.

I feel it is now important to sound a few words of caution, not in relation to the specific provisions of this Bill but to the general debate that has gone on and will continue in the future in relation to part-time employment. I am worried about the financial and organisational costs on employers with social welfare cover being extended to part-time employees under the 1991 budget provisions. There may be considerable cost implications for employers and similarly the cost implications for part-time employees of the extension of social welfare cover may be an incentive to drive part-time work further into the black economy. Thirdly, extending certain provisions of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, to part-time workers may place an additional burden on our industrial relations machinery, and I think we have a duty and an obligation to discuss these issues to ensure that a gain on one side will not become a minus on the other.

Part-time work is making a considerable impact on the labour markets of most industrialised economies. Its growth is associated with the expansion of the service sector and the increasing participation of women in the workforce. This is occurring at a time when unemployment levels remain high and full-time employment is rising only very slowly. The indications for all European countries, including Ireland, are that part-time employment will continue to increase and account for a large proportion of total employment.

The shift towards part-time and other flexible patterns of work, must be seen in the overall context of a reduction in working hours. The current average full-time hours of 35-40 hours per week represents less than half of the working week during the 19th century. As recently as 1963, the International Labour Organisation was advocating that the working week be reduced to five days and recognised the positive role of part-time working in achieving this objective. The apparently sacrosant 40 hour week has already been undercut in most white collar jobs and a 35 hour working week is sought in some branches of manufacturing.

Technological change has been and will continue to be a prime factor in influencing work and its place in society. Technological change has also asserted a massive influence on the manufacturing sector, so that despite greater gains in productivity and output, the sector supports the diminishing share of total employment. Ireland has also experienced this effect and the consequent shift to increased demand for labour and service industries and service occupations. At present this service sector is still relatively labour intensive, but unlike the manufacturing sector, it requires a different form of work schedule and use of labour to meet regular demands and retailing financial and personal services. Hence it is particularly in the services sector that the demands for a different arrangement of labour inputs have occurred and this has led to the search for flexibility and recourse to temporary, casual and part-time forms of work.

Part-time working has universally been associated with women workers. It has also been associated with poor pay, poor career opportunities and poor working conditions. In most countries it is sought and worked by a substantial and growing number of female workers who do not leave the home for any fancy career, but do so out of sheer economic necessity. It is difficult to rear families in Ireland today. The financial strain can be enormous. With so many of our people unemployed, women are forced, through economic necessity, to find alternative ways of improving their living standards or, in most cases, staying above the poverty trap. These workers are very often exploited by unscrupulous employers who employ them purely to increase profit margins. The time has come when we will seriously have to look at a minimum wage for all. That is something that I and my party will have to address in the very near future.

As I said at the outset, this Bill is to be welcomed and I recommend its passage through this House. I believe it is important that the workings of the legislation will be monitored and adjusted where necessary to ensure that both part-time workers and employers enjoy the benefits of it. I compliment the Minister for producing a well researched piece of legislation and I have no doubt it will have the co-operation and agreement of all parties in this House.

Mrs. Fennell

I join with other speakers in welcoming this Bill. It is part of a charter of rights for part-time working women and is long overdue. Everyone in this House must rejoice at last in its coming before us today. Full credit is due to the Minister, Deputy Ahern, who has shown himself forceful in so many areas of his brief. I expect this Bill will actually make him the pin-up of the part-time working brigade because it proposes a very fundamental change.

We know this Bill will affect a lot of workers. At present, the part-time workforce is 82,000 and rising. There is a commitment on the part of many employers to recruiting part-time staff. The number of regular part-time workers has increased dramatically in the past 25 years — from 42,500 to 70,000 workers.

The Minister gave important and interesting facts in his speech on the composition of that workforce. I will speak mostly about the women in the workforce. They account for more than three-quarters of all part-time workers in the 25-44 age bracket. Over 70 per cent of female part-time workers are married women.

Part-time work is a comparatively new phenomenon, but one that is here to stay and one that will play a growing part in the total labour force in every country. Generally there are many reasons for this, such as the scarcity of jobs and the willingness of people, if they cannot get a full-time permanent job, to take any kind of job; it is influenced by the woman's role in the labour market; the fact that more women stay working after they are married and have children — they need a lower workload while their children are young; the need to acquire work experience or work skills and, of course, there are other seasonal factors involved.

In this country part-time workers are regarded as cheap labour by employers whether they are supermarkets, public houses, hospitals or contract cleaners, they are exploiting the most vulnerable people who desperately need jobs, so much so that they concede their options to legal and social welfare rights. This grievous abuse of the workforce has been ignored by successive Governments in the past.

We should have proper data on key areas of work patterns for part-time workers. We know very little about them; we know that there is an army of them, but we do not have enough facts. We know that most women work part-time because of family responsibilities, the need to be with their children most of the day and to work only when the children are at school or in bed. We can guess that most of these women who are working part-time are widows, separated or deserted wives, people who would not have had skills in their earlier years and who could not turn their hand to a professional or training area. They have to go into the part-time work miliéu and cope with it as best they can.

More money should be allocated to research into part-time work as we need to know more about that very large workforce. I am happy that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Women's Rights recently commissioned research on women in atypical jobs, not directly, but partially related. When we have the final report, within a year, it should give us valuable insights to the attitudes and thinking of such workers. As far as I know, the researchers are very much dwelling on the atypical work of women in the financial institutions. It should also give us — this is terribly important — greater information about the long term results of atypical work and we should find out the long term results of part-time work.

Now let me put some flesh on some of the statistics. About whom are we talking in this workforce? This Bill is about the army of women we all see every morning at 9 a.m. scurrying on to buses, going home to do a day's work in their home having done another day's work cleaning an office, hospital or public building before 9 a.m. We are just beginning our work at this time but these women have been up at dawn or before it. They are like an outlawed race, disappearing from sight at normal work hours. They do an important service job without which working life could not function in any city. I know that many young men do part-time work but women are seen as cheap labour and far more of them are in the category of the 23 year old who does waitressing work in a big hospital. She comes in at anti-social hours, often staying longer than others, is paid £60 per week and is not paid for holidays, sickness or even for Christmas Day. She has no maternity or other rights. This cries out for change. In this context I am reminded of an employer who telephoned a contact in the legal area to ask if he had to pay his workers for Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day because his shop would be closed on those days. One must wonder about the awareness level of people who think like that.

Of course employers will continue to employ young women like the woman I quoted who works in a hospital because it saves them a packet of money. However, I should like to know why the State is colluding in such exploitation. There is very little altruism in the tough competitive world of business. Increasing profit is the driving force and, on the way, it does not really matter what workers are disposed of or how badly they are treated. That young girl, I am glad to say, will benefit from this Bill. We look forward to seeing an end to cute practices such as those which take place in many service industries where computers are triggered to activate when 17½ hours have been completed.

The Minister quoted the figure of 7.5 per cent as representing the total part-time workers of the labour force. This is the official figure but we know that many companies go well beyond this with the figure for one multiple store standing at 11 per cent in relation to part-time workers out of the total workforce. While the Bill goes a long way to relieve existing difficulties for the majority of part-time workers, it will leave specific groups still out in the cold. One group comprises student labourers, who work during summer vacations, to earn much needed money for college fees. If the students work for less than 13 weeks they will not benefit from this legislation and will not have rights, which is regrettable. I know that everyone cannot be catered for in the Bill. A very good headstart was made but I am still concerned about young people who do this work because, for many, the money is an absolute necessity. It may have been a luxury in the past but that is certainly not the case now. This Bill will continue to allow many hamburger joints and public houses to employ workers at 60p per hour with no strings or rights attached.

I am not entirely happy about the total exclusion of family members from the provisions of the Bill. I know instances of abuse where family members were treated very badly and did not have redress. Perhaps the Minister will explain why family members have been excluded in the Bill? I am sure that the months and years of intense consultation and negotiation in the preparation of this Bill analysed the broad effects of its measures in financial terms and I am sure that the cost of giving these workers rights now will have only an infinitesimal effect on overall costs. the extra £3 million per annum which is now going into the pocket of some supermarket millionaire will go towards the cost of implementing the Bill. It will not have an enormous or dramatic effect on the cost of living or overall costs.

Let me focus for a moment on the participation ratio of Irish women in the workforce. What is the picture in relation to other countries in the EC? The answer is pretty awful in that we have the lowest participation rate of all EC countries, even lower than Greece and Spain, which we would perhaps perceive to be at a lower stage of development than Ireland. The 1980 figure, which shows a rate of 29.7 per cent of all women in the workforce, is appalling when compared to the United Kingdom at 62.3 per cent. The participation rate of married women in the workforce looks even worse when one considers that we do not now have a marriage bar. They are very poorly represented in the labour force figures. The figures I have in relation to married women are for 1987. In the labour force survey, then there were 31.9 per cent married women in the labour force.

I will quote some facts from an article by John Walshe in The Irish Times of 22 February 1991 under the heading, “More Married Women now Working”. He examines the reasons why, while there are more married women working, we are still very far behind the European figures. I quote:

The lack of a detailed study of the labour supply decisions of married women has been identified as a major gap in Irish labour market research, but now this has been filled by a study carried out by Tim Callan and Brian Farrell of the Economic and Social Research Institute, which was prepared for the National Economic and Social Council.

It addresses the question why Irish married women are still much less likely than their foreign counterparts to be in the paid labour market. This cannot be explained simply in terms of Irish fertility rates being higher than elsewhere: participation rates for women with given numbers of children are also lower in Ireland than in most other countries.

The researchers draw heavily on the work already done by John Blackwell on women in the labour force, but also conducted their own in-depth analysis of the ESRI Survey of Income Distribution — Poverty and State Services in 1987, which aimed, inter alia, to gather information that would permit such microlevel studies of labour supply issues.

Their findings are based on a sample of 2,000 married women who had taken part in the ESRI study.

If we look at the total picture of women in the labour force we see this great imbalance of substantially more women than men in part-time work at the very bottom in low paid jobs and still a very big fall-off of married women out of their permanent jobs when they have two children; the steep decline comes after they have two children. Therefore, we have a distorted picture of women as workers in no matter what area we look at them. It would be hard not to accept that this has to do with women as mothers, as parents, in that the pressures mount on them when they have small children and they are caught then between the two forces of lack of child care and lack of support at home and the general sense that they have to feel guilty. Being a mother equates with being at home wearing an apron, baking scones and looking after your children. It is difficult to withstand that. Many young women like being at work but they feel guilty because they are not with their children; they cannot withstand all these forces that come at them and then they decide to leave a job, take a career break or go on part-time work.

Matters are not helped by husbands who do not take equal participation in what is called home duties, caring for children, shopping and so on. Until husbands see themselves as very necessary partners in the rearing of the children, shopping, cooking and looking after the home to enable the wife who sincerely wants to keep on her job to do so, we will not progress very far. I must admit many younger men have an admirable approach to it. They see themselves in the light that they must take 50 per cent responsibility for the home and the children, thus enabling the women to continue their working life, and the effect on these women is obvious.

Probably part-time work has to be a role option. Attitudes to it differ among women's organisations and trade unions. On one hand it is seen as a trap. If women take part-time work because of pressures when their children are small or perhaps elderly relatives become dependent on them, once they break their career they are going to lose out on important years when promotion or training is being decided and they will never make up those years. They will continue on and off part-time work or at a low level. Their colleagues, in many instances men, will have passed them out. Therefore, part-time work is seen in a negative sense. On the other hand, one could see it as a necessary escape valve. When women are under pressure which can be quite awful, they do not have to give up their jobs completely and go entirely out of the workforce. We all realise how difficult it is for such people to get back into the workforce but they can cut back, take some time off, work half a day and still have an income, keep their foot in the door and still do whatever they feel they need to do at home for their children. Whenever I talk to women or to young school leavers I tend to tell them not to go out of the workforce, to do whatever they can to remain in their jobs because, while it may seem attractive to stay at home and be a mother full-time, at a certain time the woman is conceding something very important, her ability to earn and her possibilities as an income earner for life.

The ESRI study has further thoughts on this and I will quote again from the article in The Irish Times of 22 February:

The major point that emerges from the analysis is that female participation in the labour market is very responsive to potential earnings. Thus, married women who could command relatively high wages in the labour market (because of educational qualifications or extensive past work experience) were much more likely to become employed.

The authors conclude that, other things being equal, a 10 per cent increase in wages would lead to an increase in participation by married women of between 13 and 26 per cent.

The study also suggests ways in which the objective of supporting married women caring for children could be achieved more efficiently. It says the existing forms of income support for children are exceedingly complex, including child dependant support under social welfare schemes, family income support for low paid workers, and the universal child benefit (formerly children's allowances).

The resources used in these schemes could, together with those currently used to provide indirect support to children through the tax treatment of married couples, become consolidated into a single child-benefit type payment.

Proposals have been made and will continue to be made which can help us to boost the percentage of married women working and Irish women generally in the workforce. As I said, we need a greater analysis of what is happening out there in the labour force because we have seen dramatic and fundamental changes in the whole structure of work in the last ten or 15 years. Many of the changes are negative, but we could learn a great deal about them and perhaps build on what is positive and what makes it possible for the two income family to continue doing what they want to do and be able to look after their home duties as well.

Once again I welcome this important Bill. I am very happy that it goes as far as it does. There are some exceptions I would like to have seen included but the Bill goes a long way to improving the lifestyle of that army of workers, particularly women, who have been neglected for so long.

Mr. Martin

Along with other speakers I welcome the introduction of this Bill and in particular I pay tribute to the Minister for Labour, Deputy Bertie Ahern, for the most progressive social legislation. It is in line with his performance in office since 1987. He has achieved a level of understanding with the social partners that has been instrumental in producing the Programme for Economic and Social Progress and agreements which have been of enormous benefit to the economy. He was responsible for the introduction of the Youthreach programme which helped to cater for socially disadvantaged young people and early school leavers. By and large, he has been a very caring Minister with a very strong social conscience. This gives the lie to allegations often thrown at this side of the House from Members of the Opposition, particularly Members of the Left, that Fianna Fáil are a Right wing party. The performance of the Ministers, Deputy Ahern, Deputy Woods and Deputy O'Rourke, has indicated that Fianna Fáil have a strong social philosophy, a strong social conscience dating back to their origins. This legislation is further testimony to that. We are far from being a Right wing party. We are in a left of centre mould. This legislation is welcome in that respect.

I regret that there is not any members from the Labour Party or The Workers' Party in the House. That shows disrespect for this legislation. I regret it because for many years they have been agitating for this type of legislation.

I am glad the Minister for Social Welfare has moved in tandem with this legislation in affording to part-time workers the benefits of social security. Any part-time worker earning over £40 will now be able to apply for social welfare payments. It is important that we have coordination between Ministers. In the preparation of this legislation the Minister tried to achieve consensus between employers and trade unions and the Bill represents a fairly satisfactory balance in that regard. To a large extent the Minister has met the needs of the part-time workers while endeavouring to maintain a high degree of flexibility on the employers' side to cater for the growing phenomenon of part-time work. The Minister outlined the extraordinary growth in part-time work in the last decade. Ten years ago part-time workers were predominant in agriculture and in manufacturing, but now over three-quarters of part-time workers are in the services sector. That mirrors the changes that have taken place in the economy over those ten years. We should ask why we now have such a large percentage of part-time workers in the services industries and if this is affecting the quality of the product of those industries. This Bill will go a long way towards raising the morale of staff in the services sector.

The Programme for Economic and Social Progress and the Programme for National Recovery place great stress on the tourism industry and the hotel and catering services in terms of employment growth and in terms of achieving higher earnings from abroad. However, because of the shortage of skilled personnel in this sector we are not in a position to develop these areas as much as we should. I am worried that such a high percentage of unskilled part-time workers are engaged in the industry without protection or benefits to date. This lack has resulted in a high turnover of staff in those industries. The poor conditions of employment and the lack of access to proper training and so on, has meant that people became turned off very quickly In 1989 there was a shortage of 1,000 skilled people in this industry, as we know from CERT and other bodies dealing with that sector. Pay in this area is low and conditions are poor and this has a detrimental impact on our performance and on the quality of what we produce to attract visitors here. This point is worth considering. The Bill will help in that it might result in a great continuity in employment. Because part-time workers will now be entitled to annual leave, maternity leave and legislative protection, they will have a greater incentive to stay on in various hotels, restaurants and so on, and their morale will be better.

It is important that the Minister should do everything possible to appraise the various bodies in the arts sector of the opportunities which this Bill might afford them. Arts institutions often work on a seasonal basis and can only afford workers on a part-time basis and artists combine a degree of administrative work with their artistic endeavours in artistic institutions. This Bill could be of particular use in this area. It is important that as many people as possible know of the contents of the Bill and its implications. Many people do not see the arts as an economic sector, but recent research in Britain shows that the arts have a strong economic dimension. In large cities in Britain the development of the arts as an economic sector has resulted in the restoration of inner city areas, improved old buildings and so on, which have brought people back to live in city centres near arts centres or opera houses. The whole services sector needs to be addressed in a far wider fashion than just bringing in protection for part-time workers. If it is to be the lynchpin for economic growth in the next ten years, we have to be sure that the quality of the product is up to modern standards.

This progressive legislation will improve the position of a large number of women. About 70 per cent of part-time workers are women who have been largely discriminated against by employers, and they have had little protection. I am delighted that the seven Acts which are subsumed into this Bill in terms of protecting part-time workers will be applied. Maternity leave, for instance, will be a very useful addition in the protection of part-time women workers from now on. Indeed, I do not object to Deputy Ahearn's wish that male part-time workers should enjoy paternity leave as well. That is something that might benefit me in later years. There is a strong argument for paternity leave in the States at the moment. It is an issue that is gaining greater currency and it was interesting to hear Deputy Ahearn introduce it in the context of this debate today.

Deputies Shatter and Rabbitte were correct to address the issue of implementation. They argued that workers who are not represented by unions might not be skilled enough to represent themselves before an unfair dismissals tribunal, whereas the employer might have legal representation and so on, and the employee would be at a disadvantage. The Minister should consider that argument, although in his speech he outlined safeguards he introduced to try to guard against abuse and to prevent employers from evading the legislation.

Just because one is a member of a union in the part-time context does not necessarily mean one will enjoy better rates of pay or rights than people who are not in the union. Indeed, it has been brought to my attention that many nonunion houses in the catering sector often earn greater amounts of money than those in union houses. Deputy Rabbitte made the point that the trade union movement must come to terms with the issue of part-time workers and must deal in a more forceful and enlightened way with the issue. Employers in this area to whom I spoke said that they often pay over the rate of the joint labour councils, but that they feel they have greater flexibility with their staff when they are non-unionised. Unions tend to be concerned with demarcation and petty issues as opposed to the fundamental issue of pay and conditions. The minimum wage which is agreed by joint labour councils is not necessarily what these employees are paid. One should not be under the impression that those who are in non-unionised employment are working for lower wages and in poor working conditions. That is not the case, as has been demonstrated in my own city.

The employer's perspective is important. The concept of flexibility and a dual workforce is also very important. Part-time work meets the real needs of employers in the modern world, enabling longer opening hours and so on. Over-regulation could hinder employment growth and act as a disincentive. We must also be concerned not to drive part-time workers into the black economy. It is extremely important to prevent such an exodus. The Minister has achieved the right balance in that respect.

While this Bill will mainly affect women, it would also benefit many young people. During election campaigns I have met many parents who have complained about their sons and daughters working part-time and being unable to obtain annual leave or bank holiday leave. This legislation will be particularly helpful and will be greeted with delight by many young people in the retail, hotel and catering sectors.

The Bill contains a number of safeguards to protect against abuse. I refer to the provisions regarding 13 weeks and the eight hour threshold. Any dispute in relation to the 13 weeks will be referred to the Employment Appeals Tribunal. This tribunal has worked relatively satisfactorily to date. By shifting the threshold from 18 hours to eight hours the Minister has achieved the dual goal of bringing the great majority of unprotected part-time workers within the protection of the law, while at the same time the threshold is so low as to give little incentive to employers to create new contracts below that threshold. Some Opposition Members indicated their concern in this regard.

Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the question of a minimum wage and felt this was a major omission from the Bill. I do not necessarily agree. While the Bill looks simple and is relatively short, it is nevertheless complex. Seven Acts are involved. These are the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977, the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 and 1984, the Maternity (Protection of Employees) Act, 1981, the Worker Participation Acts, 1977 and 1988, the Redundancy Payments Acts, 1967 to 1990, the Protection of Employees Acts, 1984 and 1990, and the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973. The Minister had to bring all those Acts to bear in this legislation in order to afford part-time workers the protection they afford to full-time workers. The introduction of the question of the minimum wage would have complicated matters and it should be dealt with separately in due course. We are conscious of the difficulties the European Commission have had in trying to forge a common policy on the minimum wage. This is due to the different stages of development of the various economies.

Several speakers have expressed concern about contract workers. A new breed of worker has emerged who is neither part-time nor full-time but is engaged under contract by an employer. This arrangement is widely used in the building industry. This would have to be covered by other legislation, if it needs to be covered at all. People who engage in contract work generally enjoy greater pay and benefits and they enter freely into these contracts. Part-time workers are not in the same position and cannot call the shots in relation to pay and conditions. The question of contract workers is a separate issue.

We have been blessed in many respects by the fact that considerable research has been carried out by the universities in regard to the growth of the labour force and the increase in part-time working. Deputy Hillery complimented third level researchers on the role they have played and suggested that there should be a very strong relationship between university research and the formulation of legislation. Solid research can inform legislation and enable Government to meet the needs of the day.

We must consider how the part-time worker can enter the full-time labour market. While many part-time workers are satisfied with their status, we have many younger people with few skills who are destined to be in the part-time workforce for a long time. It is important that the Department of Labour, with their associated bodies such as FÁS and CERT, the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Education, should combine to introduce programmes which would assist part-time workers to enter the full-time market at some stage. It is quite unacceptable that a young person entering the employment market as a part-timer should be assigned to a five-year stint as such. We should target that area and adopt measures which would enable part-time workers to obtain full-time employment. We must consider training schemes and incentives to employers. The Minister raised the matter in his speech and said it would be high on his agenda.

I join in the general welcome accorded to this Bill and I am pleased at the degree of consensus in the House. I note the lack of representation of the Labour Party and The Workers' Party for the duration of the debate. That is to be regretted, in view of the importance of this social legislation. They should have been here for the whole debate.

Debate adjourned.