Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 4 July 2018
257. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if her Department will investigate the colleague representative committee in a company (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29520/18]
View answerThe dispute at the company referred to by the deputy relates to certain terms and conditions of employment, including that of pay and contractual security which a trade union is seeking to negotiate on behalf of its members.
As the deputy will be aware, Ireland operates a system of industrial relations that is voluntary in nature under which responsibility for the resolution of industrial disputes between employers and workers rests in the first instance with the employer, the workers and their representatives. For its part, the State provides the industrial relations dispute settlement mechanisms to support parties in their efforts to resolve their differences.
Under Irish law, as established in case law, it is not mandatory for employers to recognize trade unions. I understand that the company in question has indicated that it has in place a mechanism for direct engagement with staff through an internal representative committee. It should be noted that internal representative committees are not trade unions and as such are not required to hold a negotiating licence or to be registered with the Registrar of Friendly Societies.
It has been the consistent policy of successive Irish Governments to support the development of an institutional framework supportive of a voluntary system of industrial relations that is premised upon freedom of contract and freedom of association. An extensive range of statutory provisions have been put in place to provide the legislative support for such a framework.
The most recent legislation to facilitate this is the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 that came into effect on 1 August 2015. This Act 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.
This legislation was the culmination of an extensive consultation process with stakeholders at the time, including the issue of employees’ rights to engage in collective bargaining. The legislation took account of relevant European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, as well as the conclusions and recommendations of the ILO in its consideration of a complaint by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions against the Government in the context of ILO Convention 98 to which the deputy refers.
The 2015 Act makes provision, in instances where employers engage in collective bargaining with an ‘internal excepted body’ as opposed to a trade union, for a referral to be made to the Labour Court to establish if internal bargaining bodies are genuinely independent of their employer. This is a role that under the legislation is vested in the Labour Court and as Minister, I have no role in this regard.
