Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 October 2015
18. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide an update regarding legislation (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35832/15]
View answerThe Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 came into effect on 1st August 2015. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/act/27/enacted/en/pdf
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/si/329/made/en/pdf
The enactment marked the fulfilment of the commitment in the Programme for Government to reform the current law on employees’ right to engage in collective bargaining in order to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgements of the European Court of Human Rights.
The legislation provides a clear and balanced mechanism by which the fairness of the employment conditions of workers in their totality can be assessed in employments where collective bargaining does not take place and brings clarity and certainty for employers in terms of managing their workplaces in this respect. It also explicitly prohibits the use of inducements by employers to persuade employees forego collective bargaining representation and provides strong protections for workers who invoke the provisions of the 2001-2004 Industrial Relations Acts or who have acted as a witness or a comparator for the purposes of those Acts.
Enactment of the legislation followed a lengthy consultation process involving extensive engagement with stakeholders. The legislation retains Ireland’s voluntary system of industrial relations, but it also provides that where an employer chooses not to engage in collective bargaining either with a trade union or an internal ‘excepted body’, and where the number of employees on whose behalf the matter is being pursued is not insignificant, the trade union may seek to have the remuneration and terms and conditions of its members in that employment assessed against relevant comparators and determined by the Labour Court, if necessary.
Specifically, the legislation includes:
- a definition of what constitutes “collective bargaining”;
- provisions to help the Labour Court identify if internal collective bargaining bodies are genuinely independent of their employer;
- clarification as to the requirements to be met by a Trade Union advancing a claim under the Act;
- the policies and principles for the Labour Court to follow when assessing those workers’ terms and conditions, including the sustainability of the employers business in the long-term;
- new provisions to ensure cases dealt with are ones where the numbers of workers are not insignificant;
- provisions to ensure remuneration, terms and conditions are looked at in their totality;
- provisions to ensure that there is management of the permitted frequency of reassessment of the same issues;
- enhanced protection by way of interim relief in the case of dismissal for workers who may feel that they are being victimised for exercising their rights under the proposed legislation.
