Having listened to many erudite and eloquent addresses on this order, ranging from Senator Lynch's description of the condition of labourers under Edward III to the new socialist order envisaged by Senator O Buachalla, I do not intend to inflict a long speech on the House. However, in view of some of the remarks made yesterday I submit that it is not inopportune that the view of that section of the workers I represent should be known to this House. In that connection I would be putting it mildly indeed when I say that the publication of this Emergency Order No. 83, prohibiting an increase in the pay in certain specified classes of workers came as a profound shock, and caused feelings of deep resentment throughout the country amongst those who will be brought within the restrictive ambit of that order. Nothing this Government has done so far has done so much to cause anger and resentment in the ranks of the organised trades union movement as this most undemocratic and dangerous decree. I feel constrained to make this statement in view of what has been said by Senator O Buachalla, when he said firstly, that the mass of the Irish people, workers and employers alike, did not feel that any injustice had been done to them by this order. Secondly, he said that if the workers were left to themselves they would not feel any injustice had been done to them.
I do not know what justification the Senator has for that statement, but I do know that we who represent the ordinary workers in this House—I refer mainly to industrial workers—that the 200,000 of these 300,000 who will be affected are affiliated to the Trades Union Congress and we are authorised to speak on their behalf. We were instructed on this matter by a special conference. The conference was called to deal with the Trades Union Bill, but the delegates were so enraged—the whole body of workers organised in the trades union movement were so angered with this order—that the Bill took second place when the conference came to consider this order. We were authorised by these people whom we represent to protest in the strongest manner we can against the provisions of this order so arbitrarily imposed on them without any prior notice, or any consultation with those it condemns, or seeks to condemn, to a steadily decreasing standard of living. It achieves this by restricting the purchasing power of the workers while the prices of commodities are left virtually uncontrolled and permitted to rocket sky high without any attempt being made to arrest them. The Government, in my opinion, must accept the major responsibility for that situation. It has made it necessary indeed for certain workers to take the only step open to them and seek financial help from the only source where they can get it, and that is their employers, to help them to bridge the widening gap between wages and the ever-increasing prices for the merest necessities to maintain even a frugal standard of living as understood by great Christian teachers. The prices of foods and commodities required by workers have now soared to such a height that they have gone beyond the reach of even the best paid workers or those who have been referred to here as sheltered workers.
Senator Tierney gave us some examples of what he had observed in regard to prices of commodities and mentioned that turf was sold at 1d. per sod. One can appreciate the difficulties of those condemned to purchase fuel in small quantities, particularly room dwellers and slum dwellers, who cannot purchase it in any other way and who have to rely on it for cooking and heating. Unless they are prepared to pay that exorbitant price they are left without fuel for cooking purposes. The House has been considering this question on a higher level than myself or my colleagues on these benches, but I submit we ought to consider the appalling conditions under which even the sheltered workers are compelled to exist at the present time. One only needs to walk around the streets of this city to realise how the cost of living has sky-rocketed during the last 12 or 18 months. Yesterday I saw apples in a shop at 8d. each and leeks at 7d. each. Some people may say that workers have no right to eat apples or leeks at that price, but the fact that the price of these commodities is so high puts them absolutely out of the reach of workers here. There might be some little justification for these prices if the agricultural community got any benefit from these high figures, but such is not the case. These increases in prices and the exorbitant profits do not go to the agricultural community but are raked off by middlemen and distributors. My trades union activities do not bring me into contact with the general body of workers referred to here as craft unions, or sheltered trades, but I do know from my own industry, which is a comparatively well-paid industry, that conditions are difficult.
I know that the conditions under which many of the workers in the one industry with which I am associated are trying to exist at the present time are very difficult. Some of these men have undertaken obligations such as the purchase of houses that they are now unable to fulfil. This week two of these men who purchased houses under utility schemes had to give them up. These men are in well-paid employment, but cannot meet the instalments with the other heavy demands made on them, with the result that they cannot continue to enjoy the luxury of living in these houses and must perforce get other and cheaper accommodation. The men I refer to are not men one would regard as extravagant. They are Pioneers and non-smokers, but they found it difficult to continue paying the weekly purchase rents on their houses. The same thing applies to what you might call the better-class workers, who are sending their sons to the Christian Brothers' schools and other secondary schools in order to provide them with a decent education. They are finding it difficult to continue to send them there for the reason that they cannot pay the high prices exacted for the books necessary to continue their education in these schools.
Senators who are in contact with workers must be aware of these facts. I do not suggest that they ignore them but they must be aware of them to some extent. I mention them to prove the difficult conditions under which lowly-paid workers are obliged to carry on. Had the Government taken the precaution of pegging prices as well as wages when the present conflict began, we would not find ourselves in the position in which we are to-day. But, no, even in the early days of the war, the Minister for Finance, in his speech on the Supplementary Budget, indicated that the big stick would be reserved for that section of the community least able to stand the attack, and permitted the profiteers to start out on their rake's progress until, as we find to-day, we are forbidden by Emergency Order 83 to exercise our rights—rights won after years of struggle and organisation—to negotiate our wages and conditions with the organisations of employers on behalf of those workers organised in the trade union movement. The least the Government might have done, before issuing this Order, was to have taken steps to bring down the cost of living even to something approximating to the level of the increases obtained by workers since the beginning of the war.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking in the Dáil a few weeks ago in defence of the order, referred to the wage increases obtained by certain workers amounting, he said, in some industries to 9/-, 12/-, or 13/- a week. Senator Lynch referred to these increases in his speech yesterday and I do not want to elaborate that aspect of the question. I do not say that the Minister, when quoting these figures, deliberately tried to be misleading but I do think he gave the impression that the demand for increased wages to meet the ever-rising cost of living had developed into something in the nature of a ramp and that tens of thousands of workers were participating in these increases. What are the facts? I am credibly informed by those who negotiated these increases that the number who received them is almost negligible, and that, in one industry mentioned by the Minister, the employees did succeed in reaching an increase of 12/- by the end of last year. But an increase, let it be noted, on a sliding scale based upon the Minister's own Department's cost-of-living index figure; the number included in this category was no more than 250; it was not a food-producing industry and, furthermore, the selling price of the commodity was more affected by an arrangement made with the Government than it was by the wage increase itself. Similarly, in the case of those to whom the Minister referred as having received an increase of 9/6 per week, the total number of people involved did not exceed 500. No amount of specious argument will dispose of the fact that, since the outbreak of the war, the cost of living has increased by 26 or 27 per cent. and that, where such increases have been given to meet that still-rising cost, the increases have not, in the overwhelming number of cases, been more than 6 per cent. or 7 per cent., and that, in fact, thousands of workers have not received even a penny to meet these increases.
The plight of what are called the better-paid workers is, in all conscience, bad enough, but the terrible prospect facing the more lowly paid class may be more easily imagined than described. They form the biggest number and are the worst paid section of the whole working community. The operation of this order, if it is persisted in, will, indeed, be a veritable deathblow to their hopes of doing anything to bridge the wide gap between their appallingly-low and inadequate purchasing power and ever-soaring prices.
The imposition of this order, in my opinion, constitutes a grave abuse of the powers conferred on the Government by the Oireachtas when it passed the Emergency Powers Act in September, 1939. That Act was passed so that the Executive might be armed with the necessary powers for the defence of the State and for the maintenance of its neutrality. It was, I submit, intended for that purpose, and for that purpose alone, and none of us who gave his support to that measure ever envisaged its being invoked and used as an instrument to interfere with the legitimate right of trade unions to negotiate and to determine the wages and conditions of their members. We are fortified in that belief by reason of the fact that, when the Bill was being considered in the Dáil, Deputy Norton asked for an assurance that there would be no use of its powers to prohibit a withdrawal of labour if employees believed such a course to be necessary. Mr. Lemass replied: "We are not proposing to do that.""Under any circumstances?" inquired Deputy Norton, to which the Minister answered: "The Government will not have power to do that. The compelling of any worker to work against his will is conscripting him." Again, in Section 2, sub-section (5) of the Act, it is specifically laid down, among other things, that nothing in this section shall authorise the imposition of any form of industrial conscription. That proviso, so far as I can remember, was inserted as a result of the discussion to which I have referred, and it was inserted for the purpose of ensuring that the Act could not be used to impose conscription, or be used for the purpose of abrogating ordinary labour conditions or rights.
The rights guaranteed to us in that Act have, in my opinion, very definitely been abrogated by the imposition of this order. The rights of the people, attained after so long and such bitter struggles, have been swept away by a stroke of the pen, and the safeguards for the workers embodied in the Trade Disputes Act, in the Conditions of Employment Act, the Apprenticeship Act and in the Trade Board Acts are now suspended. In other words, the issuing of this order has had the effect of repealing certain beneficial laws and wiping off the Statute Book much of the ameliorative legislation passed by the people's representatives. Whatever reasons the Government might have advanced for stabilising the wages of what are called the better-paid workers, there is not a shred of justification for their action in doing so, in respect of the poorly-paid workers, who, unfortunately, constitute the big majority of those affected by the order, and who will be the hardest hit by its operation.
In this connection, it is interesting to recall that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his defence of the imposition of the order in the Dáil, posed himself this question: "In a world where, for the poorest elements particularly, conditions were worsening, should not the worker in secure employment be content to undergo some self-denial for the common good?" Of course, the workers generally in secure employment are content to undergo some self-denial for the common good—most of them have been doing so since the war began—but does the Minister for Industry and Commerce imagine that that can be effectively done by stabilising the wretchedly low wages of those for whom he claims—and rightly claims—that conditions are worsening? There might be some case for the order if wages had been pegged at a level that would ensure a decent standard of living, and if steps had been taken to curb the profiteers. But, no, we have not even the promise that that will be done, and the sole object and purpose of this order is, in the opinion of those we represent, to keep wages down without even the pretence of stabilising purchasing power.
In my opinion, the stabilisation of very low wages is a grave act of social injustice. In the totalitarian countries, I am informed, they do not stabilise the highest wages. They bring the lowest up to a certain level, and simultaneously they stabilise prices as part of the order.
This order makes no such provision, and the situation confronting 300,000 people whom it will affect may bring about serious repercussions. If the Government is wise in time they will alter what is apparently their policy in this respect, namely, to stabilise wages but not to stabilise prices.
If prices are permitted to go on rising unchecked a very serious situation, I am afraid, will develop. The people will not stand for this denial of their right to seek the only method available to them, to bridge the ever-widening gap between purchasing-power and prices, and as time goes on and as the stress of living becomes more aggravated we may eventually be confronted with a very grave and menacing problem. In that connection, it is only necessary for people to read the papers to see the way workers are organising themselves at the present time. A very definite effort is being made by people outside the organised trade union movement to mass together in resistance of one kind or another to the imposition of this order. The situation may pass, out of our hands and, if it does, the responsibility will rest on the Government. We cannot do anything to prevent these people going ahead with their propaganda and organising at the present time.
I am one of those trade union representatives who utterly and absolutely abjures the doctrine of class warfare, and all that adherence to that pernicious doctrine connotes. I would go to any reasonable length to frustrate strikes and lock-outs, but I have no hesitation in saying that this order, imposed under the pretext of the national emergency, has done more to shake my faith in peaceful methods of negotiation to determine the wages and conditions of service of the organised workers, than anything that has hitherto occurred in this State. I do not know what the position will be during the coming winter. The Minister cannot be deaf or blind to what is happening all around him. Thousands of people in this city are not able to pay the rents of their houses. Other interests are organising these people to prevent them from paying any rents and I am afraid that that doctrine will be poured into the ears of people who may be able to pay their rents but who, as a result of the agitation, will refrain from doing so. One cannot blame them if the remuneration which they receive is not sufficient to provide for food, fuel and clothing. One cannot condemn them overmuch for their attitude in this respect.
I never have been a hostile critic of the present Administration; indeed, I do not think I have been even an unfriendly one, but I do gravely fear that this order, taken in conjunction with the Trade Union Bill now before the Dáil, will have the effect of causing grave and growing discontent, if not something worse, in the ranks of all those affected by it. I hope my fears may prove unfounded; but, whether they turn out to be real or imaginary, I think I can guarantee that the trade union movement is not likely to yield up its hardly-won rights and privileges without a struggle, and I do hope, if there still is any intention in the mind of the Minister to proceed with the order, that he will, even at the eleventh hour, be wise enough to abandon it or present it in a new form.
The Minister made a cardinal error when he imposed this order without any consultation with the representatives of the employers' organisations or the representatives of the trades unions. It is in direct contradiction to the attitude he has adopted recently when, on another matter vitally concerning the workers—I refer to the question of rotational work—he invited the Federation of Employers to meet him in conjunction with the Trade Union Congress representatives. Had he done that in this case, he might have avoided this discussion and all the discontent and resentment aroused throughout the country. In so far as this order itself is concerned, I do not think there is any real justification for the proposals it contains. It has been imposed without any consultation with the representatives of those whom it so vitally affects; it is distasteful to the whole body of organised trade unionists; and, in no democratic State, belligerent or otherwise, has an order of such serious and drastic import been put into operation without prior consultation. In that respect, the Minister has made a profound mistake.
Emphasis has been put on the point that groups of workers sufficiently well organised to secure compensation for rising prices have been availing of their sheltered position to help themselves at the expense of less advantageously placed sections of the community. If that statement were examined, I do not think it could very well be sustained. I happen to be a representative of probably the best organised union—though I say it myself—in this or any other country. I refer to the Dublin printing industry and particularly to my own union. Nine or ten years ago we anticipated this war and we set out on a campaign to build up a big fund to meet such an emergency as has now arisen. We are well organised—sheltered, if you will— in the newspaper and printing industry generally; but we did not exploit the situation to secure any abnormal increases for ourselves. Some months after the outbreak of the war we secured an increase of 5/-, covering all workers in the newspaper and jobbing sections of the printing industry. Our members, however, realising the situation created by the war and the consequent unemployment, immediately, of their own volition, suggested that they pay that 5/- into a fund to sustain their unemployed members. That money was paid into a fund for the past two years, plus their ordinary subscriptions. That is a tax on them of 10/- per week out of wages of £4 14s. 0d. When the war started we had amassed a fund of £50,000 ourselves in a union of 1,100 members.
Immediately war broke out we were confronted with an unemployment situation. I am merely stating this as an example. I do not want to be in any way inflated about it. We had from 160 to 200 people unemployed every week since the war began. Senator Sir John Keane suggested that he would fix the living wage necessary to maintain a family at £3 10s. 0d. a week. It is interesting to note that as a result of our efforts we were able to pay our unemployed men £3 10s. 0d. per week. They get £2 10s. from the union, and of course they get £1 a week from the State unemployment insurance which we administer by arrangement with the Department. I only mention that to disprove the statement made by Senator Hayes yesterday that the trade union leaders did not care a hang—or something to that effect—about the unemployed. I want to refute that statement. It may be said that my exception may only prove the rule, but I know that there are other unions, particularly the craft unions, who have made tremendous sacrifices to maintain their unemployed during this period of stringency. I do not like statements of the nature of Senator Hayes' statement. I am sure he did not make it with any malice, probably as the result of his own observation, but I am giving a very definite and concrete example of what the workers are doing to help themselves. I think it is a very good example. Furthermore, the people who are out of work pay no subscription. They are entitled to all benefits just as if they were working. The result is that a man who is constantly in employment and a man who is constantly out of work are on practically the same level so far as wages are concerned. There is a difference of only 5/- or 6/- a week in both these grades. I think that is an example of what we are doing to help ourselves and a denial of the statement that people in sheltered occupations are trying to cash in on the present emergency.
While I am on this point I should like to say—and I think it is only fair to the employers to say—they are contributing to that too. I refer particularly to the newspaper industry in Dublin. There is in operation there a system of rotational work. There, let me say, we are in advance of the Minister again. We have made provision in that respect. These people are more highy paid than the workers in the jobbing industry.
If they are out of work for a week they go on rotational work in different offices. The employers subsidise each worker to the extent of £1 per week, in addition to the money he receives from his own union, and in addition to the provision the workers make for themselves inside their own workshops. Their wages average about £6 a week, and the man out of work is receiving just as much as the man at work. I think it is only fair to say that.
While I am referring to the newspaper industry, which is a sheltered industry, too, I suppose, I am afraid the shelters are being very rapidly blown off the printing industry. Everyone knows that the paper situation in that industry is becoming very parlous, and that in 12 months, or probably less, according to the size of the papers decided on, there will be no paper left and no newspapers. If that was not sufficient, the Government availed of the recent Budget to put another tax on the newspapers, another tax which the Minister may have to remove next year and try to tax something else, because the tax on newspapers may not be collectable. A serious impost is inflicted on the provincial newspapers now by the fact that they must increase their price to 2½d. per paper, a sum that, I suppose, an agricultural labourer or even a farmer would look at twice before parting with it for a weekly paper. At the same time, papers from across the Border are permitted in here at a lower price than the price at which papers produced in the State can be sold. As I said, the newspaper industry, that has done so much, not only to help its workers but to help the whole State in this time of emergency, has received very shabby treatment at the hands of the State.
Rightly or wrongly, the workers at the present time feel that this order is not unrelated to the Trade Union Bill that was introduced recently in the Dáil. I have attended about 12 or 14 meetings and conferences, starting with the special Trade Union Congress. I have attended special meetings of certain organisations of unions in this country and of individual unions. I attended these meetings in connection with the Trade Union Bill, but at these meetings no one wanted to discuss anything but the Emergency Powers Order No. 83. I feel that if this order is imposed it will seriously jeopardise the whole position in respect of the measure to which I have referred. It is felt, rightly or wrongly, that this order, in conjunction with the Trade Union Bill, is a very definite attempt to lower, not for the period of the emergency, but for all time, the standard of living of the organised workers. I do not know to what extent that may be true, but that is the impression and the opinion held, I think, by the vast majority of workers organised in the trade unions. The trade union movement itself feels that this draconian order is a declaration of war, not only on the 300,000 who are going to be so severely hit by it, by the consequential lowering of their whole standard of living, and by denying to them and their representatives the right to bridge, by peaceful and lawful methods of negotiation, the ever-widening gap between purchasing power and rising prices; but, taking it in conjunction with the Trade Union Bill, they have a very real fear that it is a deliberate attempt on the part of the State to reduce the whole trade union movement to a condition of impotency and futility.
That is the position as I observe it and I have very minutely observed it during the past three or four weeks. If the Minister would do anything to dispel that apprehension and to reassure the workers that such is not the intention, I think it would be very welcome. In so far as I can judge, they regard it as a serious affront to them and an unwarranted interference with their right to negotiate and determine their wages and conditions of service. The method of its introduction was, I submit, arbitrary and the application of the proposals it contains has caused much concern. I do think that, even at this late hour, the Minister should withdraw this order, in the interests of peace in industry, in the interests of the community as a whole, in the interests of the country in this time of grave emergency, in which the whole working-class movement—if I may call it so—has rallied behind the Government in its desire not only to defend the State but also to help in the maintenance of its neutrality. I think they have received shabby treatment. There is no use in the Minister or any other person in this House comparing the condition of, say, railway workers with £2 5s. or £2 2s. 6d. a week with people placed in more advantageous positions. These workers, as I said already, have to lower their whole standard of life, have to go into cheaper houses, and to withdraw their children from schools while those who are in a better position can continue much the same life as they had been living. We will not find many people who are affected by dividends having to withdraw their children from Trinity College or the National University. Their standard of education will be the same as heretofore but the standard of education for people less favourably placed will be changed through stress of circumstances.
We have done everything possible to support the Government in this emergency. Speaking for myself, having regard to the serious position with which we are confronted, I would do the same if the Fine Gael Government were in office and I make no apology for making that statement. I think it is the duty of every man and woman in this country, no matter what their politics, to rally behind the nation in this time of crisis, but I certainly feel that there ought to be some reciprocation on the part of the Government for that help; that they ought not to drive down to a position of penury and poverty the vast majority of the people who will be affected by this order. In supporting the motion, therefore, for its revocation, I hope the Government even at this late hour will be wise and withdraw it altogether.
