Vol. 472 No. 3
15 Mr. T. Kitt asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment his views on employers who seek to defer implementation of agreed elements of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work into any forthcoming national agreement; and the measures, if any, he will take to ensure that State and semi-State companies will implement, in full, the agreed term of the outgoing Programme for Competitiveness and Work. [22594/96]
I assume the Deputy is referring to the pay elements of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
A decision by an employer, whether a private or public sector enterprise, to postpone the timing of a pay increase contained in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work is a matter for that employer and the employees or their representatives, having regard to the particular circumstances of the employment. The agreement provides that in negotiating the specified increases through the normal industrial relations machinery, due regard will be had to the economic and commercial circumstances of the particular firm, employment or industry.
Disputes concerning the non-payment of an increase contained in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work may be processed through normal procedures and, if necessary, referred to the relevant dispute settling agency.
As is the case with industrial disputes generally, the resolution of disputes about the implementation of the pay elements of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work is a matter for the parties themselves, i.e., employer and employees or their representatives.
I pay tribute to the Labour Court which has dealt with many difficult issues relating to this question. Will the Minister agree that, in general, in relation to industrial relations, for example CIE, the Government has adopted a back seat approach? Was it not appropriate that the Minister would have spelled out his views regarding the links being made? It was wrong to link the Programme for Competitiveness and Work negotiations with the viability plan for CIE. The Labour Court came down heavily on the side of the union and said that no such link should be made and that, in effect, a deal is a deal. Will the Minister agree that under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work a deal is a deal and that it is unacceptable to make such links as it would constitute a breach of trust which is so important in regard to the whole question of social partnership? He has allowed many industrial relations issues to drift; the CIE issue is a classic example. This side of the House agrees on the need for a viability plan to be put in place but because so much time has been wasted we are now in a bottleneck in the run-up to a new agreement.
I warmly welcome the Deputy's support for the Labour Court. On its 50th anniversary we should pay tribute to its outstanding work and more than 19,000 recommendations made in that time. This recommendation shows the solid wisdom of the Labour Court and I hope it is the basis of finding a resolution to the problems in CIE. It is not appropriate for me as Minister for Enterprise and Employment to enter into commentaries on individual companies, their affairs or the disputes they are handling. It has been a long tradition of occupants of this office that we provide a dispute settling service. The experts are in the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court. I hope in the case of this dispute they will, as the Labour Court recommends, avail of the service of conciliators and facilitators to reach an agreement on what are clearly difficult issues for the company and its employees.
The Taoiseach — who was never a great supporter of social partnership — has allowed many of these problems to build up. I refer to one other example, the nurses' dispute. On that issue will the Minister ensure that his Department, which has control over the labour relations machinery, come to the assistance of the Minister for Health regarding his problems in dealing with the nurses? This is a similar problem in that a restructuring plan is being negotiated. Will the Minister accept that the labour relations machinery, over which he has control, must find a new, imaginative way forward to ensure that strike does not go ahead?
This appears to be an extension of the question.
I assure the Deputy there is strong support on this side of the House for the concept of social partnership. There is equally strong support——
For the nurses.
——for the established labour relations machinery which works well. The services of my Department, through those agencies, are always available.
In relation to the nurses.
