Conditions of Employment Bill, 1935—Report Stage.
I move amendment No. 1:—
In page 4, line 22, Section 3 (1), to insert after the word "goods" the words "nor undertakings engaged in the production and distribution of newspapers daily."
I realise that the Minister is sympathetic with the position of the newspapers, because he has an amendment down, amendment No. 10, which deals with the newspapers. Unfortunately, amendment No. 10 applies only to overtime. I do not suppose anybody wants to hamper the newspapers and everybody realises that the newspapers are in a somewhat different position from an ordinary industrial undertaking. Newspaper proprietors must get the newspaper out on time, and whether it is a speech or a disaster, or whatever it may be, the paper has to be got ready for circulation and if it is not in the hands of readers on time it is absolutely no use so far as the newspapers and the readers are concerned.
It is not easy to understand the position of the newspapers. For instance, under the Bill there is no definition of a shift. While, for instance, it might be considered that on a newspaper perhaps a considerable section of employees are engaged on ordinary day work, there is another section of workers who are employed at different hours of the night. In agreements that exist between newspaper companies and their employees both day work and night work are referred to as shift work. If that is so, the Minister's amendment is useless, because a person or an undertaking is not allowed to work more than nine hours on any particular shift. No overtime of any sort is allowed in that connection. That is why I suggest the Minister ought to define what a shift is. For instance, the day work is carried out during the ordinary time of the day and in times of extra pressure some overtime is worked. If that is to be described as a shift the newspapers would be unable to get the extra amount of work done which they may require from time to time. I would like the Minister to go very fully into that question and explain what would be the difficulty in giving the newspapers an exemption from the provisions of this measure.
I would also like to point out that it is not a case of a body of employers imposing hardships on a small and unorganised section of workers. I am sure the newspapers have not any desire to treat their employees unfairly or to be put in any extraordinary position with regard to working their employees. On the other hand, the employees are well organised and very stringent regulations have been drawn up governing the production of newspapers. Perhaps it would be possible, as some of us thought some time ago, for a number of these agreements to be brought in and registered by the Minister where the conditions were not repugnant to the Conditions of Employment Bill, but the Minister is well aware that very special difficulties would arise under that head.
There is another matter that I wish to touch upon, namely, an extension of the shift question. No doubt the newspapers have men working off and on during the 24 hours, but they have a large number who work during the day and other workers come on for very short periods. It is expressly forbidden in this Bill for a worker to work in two shifts when they follow each other. Most of us would agree with that provision; but there are cases where men are taken on only for a certain period. Is a very skilled man forbidden to work only half an hour in each of two consecutive shifts? With regard to other cases, some of them seem to merit very special investigation on the part of the Minister. For instance, I understand that it is a fairly common occurrence for certain newspaper employees to work from 2 in the morning until 7 o'clock. It is the practice for some of them, at any rate, to come in from 4 until 6 o'clock in the afternoon, making a total of seven hours. Would the Minister consider that excessive? Is that expressly forbidden, and what are the newspapers to do in the circumstances?
Another matter that has not been remedied is the compulsory half-day. It is laid down that a worker has to get a half-day in the week, but according to the laws that operate in the case of evening papers, if that is to be rigidly enforced there will have to be a day on which no evening newspaper will be produced. I do not suggest that the fact that these difficulties have not been foreseen means anything more than that newspapers are a very special business working very special hours, and they are more or less a class apart from an ordinary industrial undertaking. Under these circumstances I would ask the Minister to accept the amendment exempting newspaper companies from the scope of this Bill.
I support the amendment moved by Deputy Dockrell. I gathered from the Minister last week, when discussing some other amendments, and arising out of some suggestions thrown out by me, that he did not intend to victimise, or perhaps I should say, to handicap, in any way, any industrial production in this country. The Minister must be aware that there are sufficient handicaps on the newspaper industry already, and that they suffer a good deal from competition with cross-Channel newspapers. If the law is to be as proposed in this Bill it certainly would handicap newspaper production. I want to say that both proprietors and operatives in the industry would be very anxious, if possible, to abolish overtime altogether. But overtime is incidental to the production of morning and evening newspapers, so that I hope this amendment will be accepted by the Minister. I felt early on in these debates that the Minister did not want to add any handicap to those already existing in connection with newspaper production. The Minister must be aware that the newspaper industry, and the newspaper business generally, is in quite a different category from that of ordinary industrial concerns.
I have already pointed out that overtime is incidental to the production of newspapers. I gave an illustration last week of how an evening newspaper, or a morning newspaper, that wants to give the latest and most up-to-date news to the public must have some men working overtime. The Minister might insert a provision or a licence to work overtime from time to time, but he must be aware that in regard to such matters as sweepstakes, a general election and other events that occur, it is absolutely essential that men should be brought back to do overtime work if Irish newspapers are to hold their own in Dublin and in Cork against outside competition. Take the case of operatives engaged on a Dublin or Cork evening newspaper. They will ordinarily finish their duty about five in the evening. There is no night duty done on Saturday except in the case of a paper like the Sunday Independent. In addition to the ordinary news, a Saturday evening paper has to keep some operatives for extra hours on duty to supply the late football news and so on. In the case of a paper like the Sunday Independent the men must, of course, come in and work up to midnight in order to deal with the news. There are many other considerations which I am sure will have the consideration of the Minister. He must know that the production of a newspaper is not like the building of a house. You can stop at any portion of the work of building a house, and the same is true of any other industrial undertaking which this Bill is intended to serve. But in newspaper production the delay or stopping of work for ten or 20 minutes might mean that a train or bus connection might be lost. Because of these circumstances I suggest to the Minister that newspaper production is not on a par with other industries and should not be included in Section 3 of this Bill. I am quite certain if the Minister was fully conversant with all the facts relating to newspaper production, he would accept the amendment moved by Deputy Dockrell. I said that newspaper proprietors, as well as those engaged as operatives in the industry, would be very glad indeed if they could get rid of overtime which is incidental to their work; but the exigencies of newspaper work are altogether different from any other kind of work.
A point not mentioned by Deputy Dockrell, and which I would like to mention is this: Those engaged in the profession of newspaper production have slightly better conditions than exist in other undertakings in the country. They have higher rates of pay, and they get two or three weeks' holidays. In some cases they get two weeks' holidays and three weeks' pay. The pay is relatively good, and they have amenities that do not apply to other industries in the country. All this goes to show that long before this Bill came into existence, a fortnight's holidays, and other amenities not mentioned in this Bill, applied in the newspaper industry. All these things show that this industry should be eliminated from the operations of this Bill when it becomes an Act. There are things in the Act which are the minimum requirements of the Minister.
In the newspaper profession you have three or four different kinds of labour involved. Even a reporter, who may be engaged for seven or eight hours on duty for his newspaper, might be compelled, as the Bill is now drafted, to involve his employer in trouble if he found he had to work three or four hours extra. Many of these journalists, returning from a horse show, or a race meeting, have to write up their copy when they get back to the office. It is not quite clear in the Bill whether that section of the profession is exempt or not. There are others such as editors and sub-editors who have different hours. Then there are lino operators engaged at day and night work. There are stereotypers and compositors on night and day work. There are continual shifts working through the day and night in different operations in the newspaper offices of this country and in every other country where morning and evening papers are produced. I feel when the Minister examines these things and is fully acquainted with the facts he will agree to the amendment moved by Deputy Dockrell.
I ask the Minister not to accept this amendment. The object of the amendment is to exclude the production of newspapers entirely from the scope of the Conditions of Employment Bill and, of course, the primary object of the Bill is to provide for certain minimum conditions in respect of hours of work, in respect of holidays, in respect of rates of wages, in respect of the working week and the working day, and in respect of the employment of young children. Deputy Anthony wants to exclude newspaper production from the control which will be imposed upon that form of production under this Bill.
We have better conditions. The trade unions see to that. We do not want a Bill to usurp the functions of the trade unions.
Would the Deputy say whether, in supporting this amendment, he is speaking for the printing trade unions?
There are only two of them. Is the Deputy speaking for either of them?
For one of them, at least.
I would say, if the Deputy is speaking for one of them, it is only for one, and I very much doubt even then that any case can be made by the Deputy or anybody else for the exclusion of newspaper production from the scope of this Bill. The Deputy says that at present the trade unions have certain minimum conditions which are better than the conditions in this Bill. That was not always so. There was a time when another condition of affairs existed, and it would be well for the trade unions to have, at all events, those minimum rates enshrined in legislation lest they might again experience some of the difficulties which they experienced in the past. Deputy Anthony talked of the difficulties that are experienced in newspaper production. He seems to have completely ignored the fact that there is provision made in this Bill for meeting difficulties of the kind he referred to. He might make a case about difficulty which would be imposed on newspaper production if there were restriction on the working of overtime, but if the Deputy looks at Sections 40 and 41 of the Bill he will find that uncontrolled overtime is permitted within a reasonable maximum, and that even apart from uncontrolled overtime the Minister has power to grant a permit for overtime even in excess of the fairly generous limits laid down in Section 40 of the Bill. Deputy Dockrell talked about the difficulties of shift work production in regard to newspapers. Of course the newspapers are entitled under the Bill to make application for the grant of a shift work licence, which brings them into the scope of the facilities granted in this Bill in the case of forms of industrial work where shift work is in operation.
But they cannot work more than nine hours on a shift, and that is called their day work employment.
Quite. Does the Deputy think that is unreasonable? If it is going to be shift work, it is going to be shift work. Then it means three shifts——
But that is what it does not.
But it can surely. The case made by Deputy Dockrell is a case made from the point of view, I think, in the main, of the people who are responsible in a managerial sense for newspaper production, but it surprises me when Deputy Anthony comes in to support him in a claim for the exclusion from this Bill of the minimum conditions which are enshrined in this Bill and made applicable to all workers engaged in the form of industrial work set out in Section 3 of the Bill. I believe there is a strong case for regulation in every industry. I believe a strong case could be made for the establishment of minimum conditions in every industry. Deputy Anthony attempts to pick out newspaper production as one of the forms of industrial work on which there is going to be no regulation through this Bill, but leave the matter to the free play——
The trade unions will regulate that.
They will regulate that all right.
You need not have any qualms of conscience about it.
There are things in this Bill which the trade unions have not been able to regulate effectively, for instance, the reduction of the working week to not more than 40 hours in the case of young persons. That is not provided for in the printing industry by any trade union scheme that I know of. There is a statutory provision for six days' holidays and payment for another six bank holidays.
Do not the Factory Acts cover the case of young persons?
Not in the manner provided for in this Bill.
The Factory Acts are there for the protection of young persons in the printing industry, at any rate.
Does the Deputy contend that the existing Factory Acts are as good as this Bill in respect of the 40 hours' week?
I do not suggest that they are. A young person is a person under the age of 18 years under the old Act.
If you look at the Factory Acts you will find that they are protected.
I hope the Minister will send Deputy Anthony a copy of the Factory Acts.
Their employment after 8 o'clock is prohibited.
They cannot be employed for night work, for instance, under the old Act.
Will Deputy Anthony say whether there is any agreement in existence to-day which provides that a person under 18 years of age in the printing industry is confined to working a 40 hours' week, as will happen when this Bill becomes law? Is not that an obvious advantage?
Yes, but that has nothing to do with this section.
If the Deputy excludes printing under this section those people go out completely from the scope of the Bill.
I informed Deputy Norton before that the trade unions will see after that part of it. They have done so all along without this Bill. I welcome this Bill because it is certainly laying down some minimum conditions for other industries.
But not for the printing industry?
Oh, yes. It is covered in other ways.
I find that the more the Deputy interrupts the more difficulties arise.
Might I inquire whether we are discussing these amendments on Report or on the Recommittal Stage?
Only one speech has been made by me.
I have been trying to find out for the last ten minutes whether it is Deputy Norton or Deputy Anthony or the Minister who is making this speech.
To try to restore order by an appeal to the Chair.
The discussion was intelligent up to this.
I suggest to Deputy Anthony that if there are practical difficulties to be met in the application of this Bill to the newspaper production industry there are facilities provided for in the Bill to enable the industry to get over such real difficulties as must be met when this Bill comes into operation, but that is not a case for excluding newspaper production from the scope of the Bill. I hope the Minister will insist that, in respect of newspaper production, there will be the same kind of regulation as in every other industry, so far as it is practicable to impose that regulation on newspaper production. I think if Deputy Anthony had studied the various exclusionary provisions of the Bill he would have seen that it is not necessary for him to support Deputy Dockrell's amendment in order to get over the difficulties which he has mentioned.
I cannot agree to accept this amendment, nor do I think any case has been made for it. In fact, Deputy Dockrell in proposing it did not attempt to make such a case. He did make a case bearing upon the sections of the Bill dealing with hours of work, but that is obviously a matter which we can discuss in relation to amendment No. 10, which covers that case, and not a matter which relates to the Bill as a whole. The Deputy's proposal, I take it, is to exclude the printing of daily newspapers from the whole of the Bill—not merely from the sections dealing with hours of work or overtime or the short day, but from all the sections of the Bill. No case has been made for that, either by Deputy Dockrell or Deputy Anthony or by the representatives of the Newspaper Managers' Association. We recognise, and have always recognised, that the peculiar conditions under which a newspaper industry works would necessitate the exclusion of that form of work from the provisions of Section 37 of the Bill. That section had another number on the last stage. We contemplated that exclusion being effected under Section 28, but having regard to the apprehensions which have been expressed I am bringing forward an amendment now to exclude the printing of newspapers from the scope of Section 37. That exclusion also operates, of course, to exclude that form of work from the provisions in respect of the short day, and also the provisions in respect of overtime, other than the obligation of paying the overtime rate.
The exclusion of the daily newspaper printing industry from the overtime regulations is required because of the circumstances existing rather than because of any arguments that might be advanced upon general grounds. Under present conditions, the agreements between the trade unions and the newspaper managers require that a printer when employed for any portion of a week must be employed for a full week, and that, coupled with the fact that there is no unemployment in the industry, means that at present a fairly substantial amount of overtime is worked, particularly in the production of certain classes of newspapers. In any event, the arrangements which exist in respect of these daily newspapers between the managers and the unions are quite satisfactory in all respects at present and, consequently, there is no reason why we should feel that undesirable results will follow from the adoption of amendment No. 10. But whatever case has been made deals with that particular matter only. No case whatever has been made by anybody for the exclusion of newspapers from the other provisions of the Bill to which Deputy Norton has made reference. The effect of amendment No. 10, as I said, is to exclude the printing of newspapers from the limits in respect of hours of work fixed by Section 37. It also excludes them from the provisions in respect of the short day and the provisions in respect of overtime other than the payment of the overtime rate.
The printing of newspapers, of course, is not a continuous process, nor does it really come under the section dealing with licensed shift work. If no amendment were made in the Bill, or no exclusion regulations made under Section 28, newspaper printing would, I think, come under Section 37. Obviously Section 37 does not apply to the conditions of that industry and, therefore, the amendment is being introduced. But if the amendment were not introduced at this stage, the conditions could still have been met by exclusion regulations under Section 28. As it is obvious that these exclusion regulations would have to be made in any case, it is as well to deal with the position by an amendment of the Bill rather than let the Bill pass in its present form and deal with the matter by exclusion regulations. I have heard no argument from anybody as to why the printing of daily newspapers should be excluded from any other provisions of the Bill much less from the whole measure, therefore, I cannot see my way to accept the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 2:—
In page 5, before Section 4 (3), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
Every licence granted under this section shall be expressed to provide that the person carrying on the undertaking to which it relates shall be required to conform to regulations not less favourable to the workers employed in such undertaking than the provisions of the enactments mentioned in the Schedule to this Act.
In Section 4 it is provided that where the amount of any form of industrial work to be done in the carrying on of any undertaking is so small that, in the opinion of the Minister, the provisions of this Act cannot be conveniently applied to the employment of such workers in such form of industrial work, the Minister is empowered to grant a licence entitling such an employer to employ workers outside the provisions of the Act. When we were discussing that matter on the Committee Stage and on the Recommittal Stage, the Minister indicated that he only intended that section to deal with the case of an industry outside the scope of the categories of work defined in Section 3, yet where industrial work might be performed in the establishment. Even in respect of that form of industrial work carried on in an establishment of that kind which the Minister desired to exclude from Section 4, there is at present certain protection provided under the Factory and Workshops Acts and under some of the other Acts referred to in the Schedule to the Bill. If, therefore, these Acts are repealed, either in whole or in part, by this Bill, such protection as they afford the workers will be of little use to them, since the sections of the Factory Acts have been repealed in the first instance, and there will not be protection for such workers under this Bill, because they will be excluded from the scope of the Bill. I think in granting a licence to an employer within the scope of Section 4, the Minister ought to take power to provide for the workers engaged in that form of industrial work conditions as favourable as under the enactments that will be repealed by the Schedule to the Bill. I hope the Minister will see his way to meet the amendment.
I think the Deputy is putting forward this amendment under a misunderstanding. The only case in which the Minister would give the exclusion licence mentioned in Section 4 (2) is where the amount of industrial work done in the carrying on of an undertaking is so small that factory legislation cannot be applied at all, and in fact the workers are not really industrial workers. Again, I will give the one case which prompted the introduction of this section—the shop assistant in Woolworth's who operates an automatic machine for the printing of visiting cards. The mere fact that one assistant is operating that machine printing visiting cards made the whole place a factory under the existing Acts and necessitated the application of the provisions of the Factory Acts to it. That was obviously an impossible situation. In fact, the worker concerned could not be described as an industrial worker in any strict sense. In such a case it is not practicable to apply factory legislation. In so far as legislation is required for the protection of the conditions of employment of such workers, it is legislation which would bring within its scope commercial employees rather than industrial employees, and that is why, in excluding these very occasional classes of workers from the scope of this Bill under a licence under Section 4, we are doing so because they are not properly capable of being regarded as industrial workers at all. Any question that might arise about the protection of their interests is one which must be dealt with in a measure which will bring all commercial employees within its scope.
Suppose the firm in question decided that it would produce confectionery and started a bakehouse, which would still bear a small proportion to the present activities of the firm?
The Deputy should understand that it is not the proportion which the amount of industrial work bears to the total amount of work done, but whether the amount of work is so small that the provisions of the Act cannot be conveniently applied. If the amount of work done is so small that the Act cannot be applied they can be excluded. But the fact that half a dozen workers in a concern which employs 1,000 were only engaged in industrial work would not justify the exclusion of these workers from the scope of the Act if the provisions of the Act can be applied.
I should like to point out to the Minister that if one could be assured that the Act would be interpreted and always applied in that way there would be no need for the amendment. My fear, however, is that the amount of industrial work done in the firm will rather tend to determine whether the provisions of the Act can be applied.
I do not think so. I think the Deputy can be assured on that point.
If I am assured of that, I withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 3:—
In page 5, before Section 5, to insert a new section as follows:—
Where the employment of a worker with a particular employer is interrupted by reason of the illness of such worker, the temporary cessation of the work on which he is so employed, the temporary reduction of the weekly quantity of such work, or any other temporary cause not due to the act or default of such worker, such worker shall, for the purpose of reckoning any period of continuous employment with such employer within the meaning of any section of this Act, be deemed to have been in the employment of such employer during such interruption if, but only if, the following conditions are complied with, that is to say—
(a) at the end of such interruption such worker returns to employment with the employer with whom he had been employed immediately before such interruption, and
(b) such worker is not employed in any form of industrial work during such interruption, and
(c) the duration of such interruption does not exceed one month.
Deputies will recollect that we had a discussion upon the significance to be attached to the terms "continuously employed" or "continuously in the employment of an employer" and it was urged strongly here that an attempt at a definition of these terms should be made. I was opposed to making the attempt because I had some idea of the difficulties involved; but having regard to the representations made, and, in fact, to the desirability of having such a definition, if it could be conveniently drawn up, I produced this amendment. This amendment proposes that, where the employment of a worker with a particular employer is interrupted by reason of the illness of the worker, by temporary stoppage of the work on which he is so employed, or by the temporary reduction in the quantity of the work upon which he is employed, or any other temporary cause not due to the act of the worker, then, for the purpose of reckoning continuity of employment, such worker, nevertheless, will be deemed to be continuously employed if, at the end of the interruption, the worker returns to the employment of the employer with whom he had been employed previously; if during the period of interruption he had not entered into a contract of employment with another employer, and if the duration of any one period of interruption did not exceed one month.
That definition of continuous employment, of course, must be related to the sections of the Bill in which the phrase is used, namely, the sections dealing with the annual holiday, where the qualification is set out for receiving the right to an annual holiday. As the Bill will stand, if this amendment is inserted in it, the worker, in order to qualify for the annual period, will have to comply with two conditions: first, that he has been continuously employed in accordance with this amendment, and, secondly, that he has worked for 1,800 hours or for whatever number of hours may be fixed in respect of his class of work. I think that this is as satisfactory a definition as it is possible to get, and, on the whole, I think it is better to have it in the Bill.
I should like to ask the Minister is it intended to bring in under this provision a worker who would be absent through illness as the result of an accident?
Yes, provided that the other conditions were observed.
Then it is intended also to apply to employees who are absent as the result of an accident?
Yes, that is so—provided that the three conditions set out are observed, one being that the duration of the absence should not be longer than one month.
Well, just one moment. Is the Minister quite clear on that? If it is an interpretation of this section, it is an unfair one. A man might be seriously injured in the course of his employment, and now the Minister says that if a man is so badly injured as to be absent over one month he loses the benefits due to him.
Is the Deputy going to decide the difficulties of the definition?
I think the Minister covers that by saying: so long as it is not the man's own fault.
In any event, however, the period of the interruption must not be longer than one month. You must have some period. What period is the Deputy going to suggest?
Surely, if, as Deputy Dockrell puts the point, a man meets with an accident in the course of his employment, for which the employer is liable to pay workmen's compensation, that person ought not to have the benefits due to him guillotined, so to speak, because he happens, perhaps through the negligence of the employer, to lose continuity?
He gets continuity under other qualifications.
It could be argued that he was in continuous employment even though he was ill.
What period does the Deputy suggest?
A fortnight after the doctor gives his certificate that the man is unfit for work.
One has to have a definite period fixed. A man could be employed on the 1st January and again on the 31st December—for two days only—and provided that he could show that he was absent through illness he becomes due for the benefits here. You must have some period.
The Minister is merely trying to justify an interpretation which, on reconsideration, I think he will realise is not a fair interpretation. Deputy Dockrell asks whether a person, who has met with an accident in the course of or arising out of his employment, would be excluded from the benefits of this section if he were absent for a month. I think that the Minister should meet specially the case of people who meet with accidents in the course of their employment; and the duration provided for in paragraph (c) need not apply in the case of a person who meets with an accident on duty and is in receipt of benefit under the Workmen's Compensation Act.
I could not do that. One must have some period.
With regard to the provision of holidays, and the proportion of worked time—the six days in the year and public holidays—that is a calculable factor. Perhaps it is not a matter of deadly accuracy, but it is at least a calculable factor. We all sympathise with the man who has had an accident, but if you adopt the principle that people who have accidents are to be provided for, in connection with holidays, independent of whether they work or not, you are going to take the calculation of what it is going to cost the employer and, eventually, the public, from a calculable thing to an incalculable thing. I think the Minister has met this case very fairly. It is conceivable that you could have all sorts of difficulties arising and all sorts of loopholes which would need to be provided for. This is provided for very late in the day and it is conceivable that you would have all sorts of loopholes. You might have a man laid up for a month or six weeks, and then he might be called up to the Colours for another six weeks, and eventually you might have quite a large number of people in employment who had actually not worked at all but who were still in benefit, to use a trade term, for holidays. I do not think the Minister ought to go further than he has provided for in this amendment at the moment.
I would appeal to the Minister to give this matter further consideration. Security against abuse is provided in the provision as to the number of hours the man must have worked previously. If a man got work on the 1st January and on the 31st December, as in the case the Minister mentions, he would have to have 1,800 hours, or whatever the number of hours fixed, before he would be entitled to benefit. If you leave loopholes for employers, you will have men, who have been ten or 20 years in one employment and who meet with an accident, being deprived of their holidays because they could not resume work inside of the month. If they came back in, say, six weeks, that being the earliest time their doctor allowed them to come back to work, you will have these men being picked out to be deprived of their holidays under this section, while their fellow-workers are enjoying their holidays. You might have more than one man injured in an accident, through the collapse of a scaffold or through some other similar cause, and these men would be deprived of holidays under this section when, obviously, they have suffered enough already through the accident, which might have been the result of the negligence of the employer in not providing sufficient safeguards for their health and safety. Surely, in such circumstances, these men ought not to be penalised. If there is a possibility of abuses, I think the Minister can easily avoid them, but as the Bill stands now, it is going to inflict very grave hardship and cause such anomalies as I have referred to, where you have some employees getting their holidays and their comrades being deprived of their holidays at a time when they would most need a holiday in order to recuperate after the accident.
There is a lot to be said for leaving the term "continuously employed" undefined and letting a commonsense interpretation be applied to it, having regard to the other sections in the Bill. Immediately you introduce a definition you have to impose restrictions. The question is whether or not the amended interpretation is sufficiently long to define "continuous employment." I think you must regard continuity of employment as broken if the interruption exceeds one month. That probably will apply in some cases in a manner which we might regard as unfair to the workers but the number of such cases will be comparatively small whereas the effectiveness of the definition is a more important consideration.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 4:—
In page 6, line 8, Section 6 (3), after the word "may" to insert the words "with the consent of the Minister."
This is a matter which we debated at some length in the second Committee Stage. It is provided in Section 6 (3) that "Any employer may, on giving not less than one month's previous notice to all persons in his employment, substitute in any year any of the following days for any of the days mentioned or deemed to be mentioned in paragraph (c) of sub-section (1) of this section"; and then certain holidays are specified. I want to ensure that the right of the employer as provided for in this Bill is not implemented in a vindictive or capricious way. Under the powers conferred upon the employer in this section it may conceivably happen that if a particular city or town generally observes a bank holiday one employer may say, without regard to the local convenience of the people and without regard to the desire of his own workers, that he is not going to accept the local bank holiday and that if his workers are not working on that day he is not going to pay them though every other employer in the district may exempt his workers from work on that day and pay them for it. It may also happen that if an employer wanted to be particularly "cussed" he could select all kinds of Church holidays instead of a reasonable bank holiday in respect of which he proposes to pay his workers. I am trying to ensure that there is some kind of consideration given to the convenience of the workers in this matter and that an employer should not be allowed to say, without any regard to the convenience of his workers, that he was going to require them to work, say, on the first Monday in August and give them as an alternative bank holiday, Ascension Thursday in the following year. He is empowered to do that under the Bill as it stands and if an employer were to so act, he would be acting in a vexatious manner.
He could not give Ascension Thursday in the following year. There must be six holidays within the year anyway.
I do not think the Minister will find the word "calendar" in the Bill at all. At all events, what I want to ensure is that when a vague provision substitutes for a bank holiday a Church holiday there will be some advertence to the convenience of the workers. With that view I want to insert certain words in this section which will provide—that substitution will only take place with the consent of the Minister. If the Minister's consent is necessary then we may be sure that the representations made by the workers against giving consent to the substitution will reach the Minister and that he may be able to consider their convenience and to say why the substitution should not be permitted.
This matter was discussed at considerable length at an earlier stage and I indicated the reasons why I thought the selection of six public holidays should be left to the employer in each case. The employer has the responsibility for carrying on the business, and considerations bearing upon the effective carrying on of the business cannot be ignored. It would be administratively impossible for the Minister himself to undertake the responsibility of examining the circumstances of every case and giving or withholding his consent to the employer's proposal. I think it is not unreasonable that the person responsible for the business and for determining whether the volume of business at a particular period of the year or the need of the work likely to be forthcoming makes it desirable or undesirable that public holidays or Church holidays should be observed, provided that the statutory obligation of giving six holidays is complied with. I think the Bill is better as it stands.
Is the amendment withdrawn?
No, Sir, I am pressing it.
Question put: "That these words be there inserted."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 28; Níl, 63.
Tá.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Everett, James.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Norton, William.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
Níl.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Micheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Good, John.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Nally, Martin.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Everett and Keyes; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 5:—
In page 6, line 28, Section 6 (4), before paragraph (b), to insert the following paragraph:—
the day substituted for any day mentioned or deemed to be mentioned in paragraph (c) of sub-section (1) of this section shall be the day mentioned in the next preceding sub-section of this section which is immediately following the day for which it is so substituted.
The object of this amendment is to provide that there shall be some equity towards the workers in the matter of substituting Church holidays for public holidays. In the section certain holidays are set out as public holidays, and the employer is empowered to substitute for any one of the six named holidays in sub-section (1) any of the Church holidays set out in sub-section (3). Because of the very unsatisfactory way in which the section is drafted, and the considerable looseness which is imported into it, it is possible for an employer to say to a worker one month before Easter Monday: "Take notice that I am not going to pay you for Easter Monday. If you want to get paid for that day you must work that day, and in lieu of that I will pay you for the 8th December." The worker would have a paid holiday which he would ordinarily get on Easter Monday abolished; he would be required to work that day if he wanted to get wages for that day, and in lieu he would get paid in respect of the 8th December.
The worker might prefer that.
How long did it take the Minister to think out that solution?
It has not occurred to the Deputy, apparently.
The Deputy does not waste his time on silly thoughts of that kind. It is possible under the section for an employer to say to a worker: "I am not going to pay you for the first Monday in August."
Because he has power, on a month's notice, to substitute a Church holiday. He may say to the worker that instead of having a holiday on the first Monday in August he would give him a holiday with pay on the 8th of December. If the worker chooses to object, as he is entitled to do, the Minister does not want to impose any restriction upon the employer and does not want to claim for himself any right to be consulted. Not merely is the employer entitled to make the substitute, but he can make it without consulting the convenience of his worker, so that the employer can deprive the worker of his paid holiday in March or April or August and give him a paid holiday instead in December. If dismissed in the meantime after the substitution of the 8th of December for March or the first Monday in August, no provision is made in the Bill whereby the worker would be paid. I think if there is any case for the substitution of Church holidays for bank holidays—and from our knowledge of several places where Church holidays are preferred, we know a strong case can be made for the substitution of Church holidays for bank holidays—it should be substitution that would replace the nearest Church holiday for the nearest bank holiday. I think the Minister should have no hesitation in accepting this amendment.
The Deputy says this section as it stands will enable the employer to substitute a holiday in December for one in August. But that also makes it possible for him to substitute a holiday in August for one in December, and the Deputy is trying to prevent that. I see no reason to prevent that. If the Deputy's amendment were carried, three or four holidays in sub-section (2) would have to be deleted altogether, because they could never be observed under the Deputy's amendment. It is quite possible that there might be a general desire on the part both of the employers and the workers for one of those holidays to be observed in a particular way.
If that desire is expressed, will the Minister meet it and only allow the substitution then?
I already expressed the opinion that any enlightened employer would consult local practice and the convenience of his workers so far as his business will allow him, and select those holidays that conform to them. I doubt very much that there will be a case of an employer who would attempt to use the power of substitution in the vindictive manner now suggested and who would get away with it. I think the Deputy knows that is so, and that the certain element of discretion given is desirable and in regard to the particular practice observed in different parts of the country—in most parts of the country—the Church holidays most anxious to be observed would not be observed under the Deputy's amendment.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 10; Níl, 76.
Tá.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Corish, Richard.
- Davin, William.
- Everett, James.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Keyes, Michael.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Norton, William.
- Pattison, James P.
Níl.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Davis, Michael.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Finlay, John.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Good, John.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Nally, Martin.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Everett and Keyes; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 6:—
In page 12, before Section 23 (3), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
The Minister may, whenever and so often as he so thinks proper, by order make regulations varying, in respect of all or any particular classes or class of workers, all or any of the periods of eighteen hundred hours, three hundred hours, and one hundred and fifty hours mentioned in sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section by substituting for such periods or period such other periods or period as the Minister shall think proper, and whenever any such regulations are in force the said sub-sections shall have effect, in respect of the workers or the classes or class of workers to which such regulations apply, as if the said periods or such of them as are affected by such regulations were varied in the manner stated in such regulations.
The provisions of Section 23 were discussed here on the last stage, and the need for such an amendment as this was adverted to. The section provides for an over-riding maximum period of 1800 hours, which must be worked in one year by any worker in order to qualify for the annual holiday. It was pointed out that that number of hours was related to a 48-hours' week, and would be less applicable to the circumstances of an industry in which work was ordinarily shorter or became shorter in consequence of the regulations made under this Bill, so this amendment is brought forward in order to permit of a variation in that number of hours in relation to particular classes of industries in respect of which it would not be applicable.
Might I ask the Minister if it would be necessary to have application made to the Minister in a particular instance to give effect to the regulation? In regard to the case I have been quoting here, will it be necessary to have application made to the Minister to deal with that particular case?
It is not necessary to have application made. It may be desirable to have a particular case brought to the attention of the Department so that it will be dealt with, but the Department would act on its own initiative without an application.
Amendment put and agreed to.
SECTION 19.
(3) If any person for the purpose of trade competition solicits or procures from any other person information derived by such other person from a piece work particulars docket, from a piece work particulars placard or from a piece work particulars book, or for the purpose of securing any such information so derived gives or offers or causes to be given or offered to such other person any reward shall be guilty of an offence under this sub-section and shall on summary conviction thereof be liable to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.
Before amendment No. 7 is taken, might I call the Minister's attention to a correction that seems to be necessary in Section 19, sub-section (3), line 7, page 11? The word "he" appears to have been omitted before the word "shall."
Yes; that seems to be required. The words "such person" should be inserted. I move amendment No. 7:—
In page 12, before Section 23 (4), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
It shall not be lawful for any worker, during any period of annual leave to which he is entitled under this section, to do for reward any industrial work of the same form as the industrial work in which he was employed immediately before such period of annual leave, and if any worker does any industrial work in contravention of this sub-section he shall be guilty of an offence under this section.
On the previous stage, Deputy Norton proposed that it should not be lawful for a worker to do any other form of work during his period of annual leave. I indicated certain objections to that provision. I accepted the desirability of prohibiting such a worker from doing work similar to that on which he was ordinarily employed, but I felt that it was desirable to leave him free to take certain classes of work which might be a form of recreation. I indicated that I would endeavour to produce an amendment expressing that point of view.
This is the amendment, and it proposes to prohibit a worker during the period of his annual leave from doing the same form of industrial work as that in which he was employed immediately before the period of such leave. I think that is as far as we can go in the matter. It deals with the particular case raised, where there is a shortage of skilled workers at the present time, and there might be considerable inducement held out to these skilled workers, enjoying a period of annual leave from one employer, to take employment with another in the same class of work. It goes no further than that.
On this amendment, I desire to say a word in defence of something that is perishing from this country, as it is perishing from every other country where the bureaucrat reigns supreme, and that is in defence of individual liberty. I regard it as a monstrous infringement of the individual liberty of working-men in this country that this House should undertake to regulate, not only the conditions that shall obtain when they are at work—there could be no defence made for that—but that we should pursue them into their leisure hours and proceed to regulate where they will spend the time which is their own. No Party in this House would advance a demand that the time of an employer should be regulated as to his occupation during his leisure. No one in this House could defend on its merits a suggestion that we should pry into the personal affairs of any citizen simply because he earns his living by the sweat of his brow. I have heard it stated by a very distinguished defender of democracy that democracy amounts to saying, whether a tyrant be a king, a demagogue or a dictator, "let him look out." In that category of kings, demagogues and dictators, I think it is very necessary in this country to add bureaucrats.
It is a source of astonishment to me that members of the Labour Party should allow this House to be invoked for the purpose of branding the working-men of this country as a suitable group for restraint of the kind envisaged in this amendment. Surely the fact that a man works does not rob him of his personal dignity, or all right to be looked upon as an independent man capable of regulating his own life, capable of recognising his own obligations to his neighbours. Why should we assume that because a man is a working-man he is going to betray the interests of his neighbours and unjustly take from his neighbour a day's work or a week's work which he believes his neighbour is entitled to? That is the assumption enshrined in this amendment. Are we going to send it out from this House that our considered judgment of the working-men of this country is that unless we regulate them and prohibit them from doing what would ordinarily be a perfectly legitimate thing to do in their leisure time, they will so far encroach upon their neighbour's means of livelihood that it is necessary to check them by legislative action of this character?
I know of no precedent in the legislation of this country, for an attempt to interfere with a man's enjoyment of his leisure and to do an act which in itself is perfectly legal during his leisure time. There is no precedent for it. I urge on the Labour Party even now to point out to the Minister that they are not prepared to accept the principle enshrined in this amendment, although in the past they have been led to believe that this amendment would remedy what appeared at first glance to be a potential evil. I urge on them that there is no serious danger of evil arising, and that, whatever evil might accrue from leaving complete liberty to the working-men in their leisure time, the evil of depriving them of that liberty, of interfering with their personal affairs, as the amendment proposes to do, is infinitely greater, because it strikes at a great principle. As I have repeatedly pointed out before, if you allow principles to be encroached upon in order to deal with special cases, those encroachments will be used as a precedent in future legislation. It has happened on every single occasion in which we sought to make a breach of a big principle in order to meet a special circumstance. Whenever we did that, it was quoted to us later as a precedent for going further with new encroachments upon the principle.
We are now going to establish a principle that this House feels itself competent to regulate the leisure of a certain group of the community, and that group is restricted to those men who earn their living by the sweat of their brow. I object most emphatically to that type of discrimination and to any citizen of this State being prohibited by law from doing, in his own time, what in itself is an absolutely legal thing to do. I urge on the Labour Party to oppose this on principle. I do not pretend in this regard to speak for my Party. I am speaking purely as an individual and in defence of what I regard as a grave principle of liberty. I do not propose to challenge a division on the matter, but I do propose to ask to be recorded as dissenting from the amendment, if the Minister persists in it. I only hope that the Leader of the Labour Party will challenge a division on this and give the body of the House an opportunity of voting upon it. If he will give me the slightest indication that he will join me in the Lobby, even if we go in alone, I shall so far trespass on the indulgence of the Chair as to occupy the time necessary for a division, in order to permit the Leader of the Labour Party and myself to record our view.
I am somewhat confused as to the attitude of the Party opposite in relation to this Bill. The first demand for this amendment came from the members of Deputy Dillon's Party. If Deputy Dillon thinks it is worth while wasting ten minutes of the time of the House for a speech of the kind he has just delivered, he should first use his eloquence and oratory on the members of his own Party and persuade them he is right before he comes to persuade us. Apparently, he has some influence with them, but he has no influence with us. In any case, his speech is very illuminating and indicates the extent to which he, at any rate, has moved from the theory of the Corporate State which he was defending 12 months ago.
The Minister knows that to be untrue.
I do not know whether his outburst is going to result in his joining Deputy MacDermot on the Independent Benches. If there is any consistency in his Party, or any general agreement as to what they stand for on anything, then Deputy Dillon is surely in opposition to the rest and it is about time that he severed whatever connecting link remains. In any event, his ideas are antediluvian. The idea that it is a restriction upon personal liberty to control the conditions of employment is preposterous. Are we, in the interests of personal liberty, to allow children to work all night? It is a restriction upon them, a denial of their dignity, to allow some employer, for a few shillings a week, to employ them for long hours until eight, nine, ten or twelve o'clock at night? The Deputy will agree that we should regulate there. It is only a question of where the regulation is to stop or to begin. The Deputy's principle falls to the ground as soon as it is examined. It is not a principle at all, but an opportunity of making an oratorical outburst, which Deputy Dillon had no intention of making five minutes before the amendment was moved, and which he will have forgotten five minutes after the discussion is concluded.
Not since I saw Bernard Shaw's "Apple Cart" staged have I listened to a more interesting exhibition of vocal nonsense than Deputy Dillon has indulged in here this evening—and he has the audacity to appeal to the Labour Party to vote against this amendment. If he had directed his histrionic talents to the Deputies on his own benches and tried to get them to vote against it, I could perhaps understand it, but Deputy Dockrell and Deputy Beckett, and, I think—though not quite in the same category—Deputy Good, are in favour of this amendment. Most sensible people are in favour of it. On the last day we discussed this matter, Deputy Dillon was handing out Socialist labels to all who asked for these restrictions to be placed upon people so as to prevent them working during the period of the holidays that the State was providing for them, and he was quite taken aback when Deputy Dockrell almost put out his tongue, so to speak, for one of these Socialist labels when he followed on Deputy Dillon and trounced him very severely for describing him as a Socialist when, according to Deputy Dockrell himself, he was doing a very sensible thing. As a man engaged extensively in industrial work in the city, Deputy Dockrell saw that the amendment we were pressing for and that he was pressing for—in fact, I think he spoke in favour of it first—was a very useful amendment from the point of view of regulating industry.
Deputy Dillon now comes here and, in an attempt to understand this Bill, he has got himself into a state of mental indigestion. He says: Why should we regulate anything? Why not let us have that old laissez faire concept of life which the Deputy at one time used to be so fond of? He asks why should we pursue the working-man into his leisure and pry into his affairs there. Apparently, he does not understand that this amendment is to make sure that the working-man gets leisure. If the Deputy had his way, the working-man would get no leisure, because, when he would have finished working for one employer, and was then getting his six days' holidays with pay, he would be entitled to take up work in some other industry during the week when he was supposed to be having leisure. So that, what Deputy Dillon really wants to do is to make sure that the worker is given facilities whereby he may work during the week of his holidays when every sensible person in this House wants to make sure that the worker will have the leisure to enjoy the wage he has got for that week's absence from work. If Deputy Dillon would reflect on these things for a moment, he would realise that his argument is based, not on the facts of the Bill, not on the facts of everyday life, but simply on an invention, and even a very muddy kind of invention at that.
The object of this amendment is to make sure that, if the employer is going to be required to grant the worker a week's holidays, and to pay him for that week, the worker shall be entitled to enjoy that week and shall be prevented from denying himself the recreation which will be provided for him on that occasion. Deputy Dillon comes in here to make the claim, then, as if he were the only apostle of individual liberty in the House—I suggest that if the Deputy rattled his brains instead of the money in his pocket he might be able to make a better contribution to this discussion—he comes in here now and poses as the only champion of individual liberty here. Is not that an impudent pose, especially when the Leader of his Party is in the House and could be relied upon to express the Party view on a matter of that kind? Deputy Dillon really should not take himself so seriously in matters of this kind. He ought to leave the championship of individual liberty to the Leader of his Party, especially when that Leader is present in the House; and I am sure that, notwithstanding Deputy Cosgrave's imperfections in many respects, he would express those views with less arrogance and probably more common sense than the Deputy displayed in his contribution to the discussion of this Bill here this evening.
I did not intend to speak on this matter, but Deputy Norton drew me. Apparently, Deputy Norton has lost faith in the principles of the people whom he professes to represent. Evidently, Deputy Norton's faith, that ordinary members of trades unions or of labour generally are loyal and faithful to one another, has lapsed. He does not trust them. It is necessary to enshrine in an Act of Parliament a section to compel workers to be loyal to one another. That is the sum and substance of this amendment.
It is impossible to compel members of Fine Gael to be loyal to one another, evidently.
I agree with Deputy Dillon. I should not like to see liberty fettered, any more than Deputy Dillon or any other Deputy in this House would like to see it fettered, and we are accepting the principle of fettered liberty in this amendment. I stand behind Deputy Dillon in his opposition to this particular clause, but I am rather perplexed at the view of Deputy Norton and the Labour Party. I am surprised that they should stand by the amendment because, if there is anything in trade unionism worth while and if there is anything in the loyalty of the individual workers one to another, then, undoubtedly, this clause is unnecessary. Is it supposed that, if workers have been pressing for a holiday, as they evidently have been, and if the Labour Party in this House comes to their assistance to see that they get it—is it supposed that they are going to abuse that? Have you so lost faith in them that you are going to enshrine in an Act of Parliament a provision which will prevent them from having full freedom during that holiday? There is no doubt that this does limit their freedom to do at least certain things, and I think it is a principle that the leaders of the Labour Party at least ought not to accept.
Challenge a Division on it.
I am sure it is a matter of congratulation to the House to find that there is a second champion of individual liberty in the House and that Deputy Dillon has not a monopoly. Deputy Bennett expressed his amazement at the gyrations of the Labour Party. Of course, the attitude of the Labour Party has always been a puzzle to that side of the House. In fact, they find it very difficult to follow us at all.
We do not claim to have reached the very high standards of the Fine Gael Party, perhaps, and we consider that common sense and reasonable measures are necessary to regulate our lives. Deputy Dillon states that we are restricting a man from doing what he has a perfectly legal and legitimate right to do, and, in the next breath, that we are afraid to allow a man to do the mean thing of stealing a few hours' work in the week from a fellow-worker. Would the Deputy feel that the worker was entitled to take a week's work during the time he was being paid for a holiday? He cannot have it both ways. The Deputy says that it is legitimate for a man to do anything he likes during his leisure. Evidently, the Deputy thinks it is perfectly legitimate for a worker to steal a week's work from a fellow-worker, who perhaps badly wanted work, and to take the money prescribed by the State. Because the House here, and the Labour Party with the majority of the House, who are in favour of providing leisure for the workers, do not want to see that leisure abused, and because we want to take ordinary common-sense means to see to it that workers, whether they are mean-souled or high-souled people, will adopt the principle laid down here, we are accused of lack of appreciation of the workers' needs and of robbing them of their individual liberty. I think it is an abuse of the privileges of the House to have such inflictions made upon the Minister as have been made by these Deputies, and to have to listen to the things that have been said of him by Deputies Dillon and Bennett.
Amendment put and agreed to.
I wish, Sir, to be recorded as objecting to the amendment.
Deputy Dillon's objection will be recorded.
I move amendment No. 8:—
In page 14, line 22, Section 26 (1), to delete the words "one week" and substitute the words "two weeks."
This section deals with the notice of the annual leave which must be given by the employer, and the Bill makes provision for the giving of not less than a week's notice, by the employer to the workman, of the time of the commencement of his annual leave. I think a week's notice of the commencement of the annual leave is utterly inadequate. If the employer chooses to say to the worker that he was only going to give him a week's notice of the annual leave, then the worker who might have thought of the possibility of getting away to the countryside or the seaside with his wife and family would not be able to make the necessary arrangements in the meantime. While still complying with the terms of this section the employers could adopt a very reprehensible attitude, cause considerable inconvenience to the worker and a considerable dislocation of the holiday arrangements of his family. My amendment seeks to ensure that the worker will be given at least a fortnight's notice of the time of the commencement of his annual leave. I was in considerable doubt when submitting this amendment that a fortnight's notice—that is the period suggested—was adequate, but at all events, one week's notice of the commencement of the annual holiday is totally inadequate. A fortnight's notice, in my opinion, is also inadequate but it is a substantial improvement on one week. I think the Minister should accept the amendment so as to ensure as far as possible that the workers will get at least a fortnight's notice. The employer, I hope, will be able to arrange his industrial undertakings in such a way as to give a much longer notice. As the Bill stands it is necessary to give only one week's notice which is entirely inadequate, if there is to be any regard for the convenience of the workers. I hope the Minister will accept the amendment:
I have a good deal of sympathy with Deputy Norton's amendment. At the same time, I am afraid I would not like to see it passed. We have heard Deputy Norton trotting out instances of the employer who seems to have a dislike for everybody and who will seize the opportunity of giving only one week's notice to the employee. I suppose I would not care to say that there is no such employer in the whole of the State, but I do not know him.
Would the Deputy have any difficulty in finding an employer who gives no holidays at present?
I think I would. I cannot recall anybody.
I will send the Deputy a long list before the Fifth Stage.
Very well. I will check up on it afterwards. As far as the average employers are concerned there will always be a certain amount of give and take. I think the Minister has fairly met the average case by saying: "Well, the worker must get one week's notice." Most of the workers who are going away for holidays will make their plans a good way ahead, and they will then try to find out how far the employer can accommodate them. I think that in most cases that will be the spirit in which the problem will be approached. But absolutely to say that everybody must get a fortnight's notice is, I think, going too far. After all, the average worker does not hire a pantechnicon for going away.
Yes. He has not to take a seat in an aeroplane when he is departing for his holidays. Many of them could make their arrangements in a few hours.
What about the accommodation they must get?
At the present time a considerable number of holiday-makers can get accommodated in the rural districts. Perhaps I would supply the Deputy with a list. I would like to say that I think a fair average has been struck and I am sorry to see the Deputy wanting to make a fortnight's notice mandatory in the Bill.
This point was also discussed already on another amendment. I agree that as a general rule it is desirable that the employees should get a longer notice than a week as to the date of the commencement of their holidays. But the question we are considering now is not what is a reasonable arrangement between employer and employees in that respect but what is the statutory minimum obligation we are going to impose having regard to the circumstances of some industries and the advisability of conveniencing the employer to the extent that he will be able to fulfil his obligation to give his employees a week's annual holidays during the slack season of his trade and other considerations. It is desirable I think that the minimum statutory obligation in respect of the holidays should not be for longer than a week's notice. I think I am quite certain that the majority of employers will find it not merely advisable but also desirable to give a longer notice. I do not think the giving of more than a week's notice should be made a punishable offence under this Bill. There is an obligation to give at least a week's notice. I think the Bill is better in its present form. In certain cases it might prove detrimental not merely to the interests of the employer but also to the interests of the workers if a longer period were prescribed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 9:—
In page 14, line 57, at end of Section 28, to add the following sub-section:—
Exclusion regulations made under this section shall be expressed to provide that conditions of employment not less favourable to the workers concerned than the provisions of the enactments mentioned in the Schedule to this Act shall be observed in every undertaking engaged in the form of industrial work to which such exclusion regulations relate.
This amendment is somewhat similar to amendment No. 2, except that amendment No. 2 applies to a certain type of industrial worker. This amendment, however, deals with a somewhat wider issue, because it provides for the issue by the Minister of exclusion regulations, and these exclusion regulations can, of course, be made applicable to industrial undertakings in such a way as to exclude industrial undertakings from the obligation which is provided for the workers in that undertaking by this Bill. As the Minister knows, large sections of the Factory and Workshop Acts are repealed, and the whole of the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act, 1920, is repealed in respect of any form of industrial work. The amendment which I have proposed is designed to ensure, in respect of forms of undertaking in which exclusion regulations are made, that the protection afforded by the Acts repealed by this measure will continue to apply to the workers who are working under the exclusion regulations. I think the Minister ought to grant to the workers that protection in the case of excluded undertakings.
I do not think the Deputy can have given this matter very careful consideration. Obviously, the only case in which an exclusion order will be made is where it is not possible to observe, in respect of some form of industrial work, the provisions of this Bill. I do not contemplate that the exclusion regulations will be made except where it is not possible—I use the term with its ordinary meaning—to observe the provisions of the Bill. It is the intention to make suitable provision in cases where, having regard to the circumstances of the industry, it is impracticable to observe the strict conditions of this Bill. The only circumstances, therefore, in which exclusion orders will be made will be where it is necessary to enable a particular industry to carry on, but it is not proposed to permit particular workers to work under conditions less favourable than those prescribed in the Bill. One provision is that a man must not be employed after 8 p.m. In some industry which one can conceive the regular practice might be such as to require that workers will be employed after that hour, not on overtime, but on ordinary work. If a case were made to show that the circumstances of the industry were such that that was necessary, then an exclusion order would be made. Obviously, if the amendment were inserted, no such exclusion order could be made, and therefore, in my opinion, the Deputy's amendment cuts right across the intentions of the section as to permit of exclusion orders being made in certain exceptional cases in respect of which the provisions of the Bill cannot be carried out.
The Minister knows that the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Acts and the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act at present apply, if the industry is excluded by exclusion regulations, but they will not if certain provisions set out in this Bill are enacted, because these Acts will be repealed.
No exclusion order can be made except after consultation with the workers and employers. I contemplate such exclusion orders will be associated with agreements or other regulations making special provision for the peculiar circumstances of the trade covered by the exclusion order.
May I take it that, in making the exclusion regulations, the Minister will at least afford the protection now afforded but which will not be afforded when the Factory Acts and the other Act are repealed by this measure?
That would be my intention.
Does the Minister not think it desirable to arm himself with powers in a specific way?
The amendment does not do that. Saturday will be a short day, but an employer may substitute another day for Saturday on giving notice. In certain industries in respect of some class of workers another day cannot be regularly substituted. There may be industries where the short day of the week might change from week to week and the number of workers affected would not be very many, and the number of industries affected would not be very many, but we have to meet that case by an exclusion order. It might be contended that that was a disimprovement of the conditions, but, even if it were, it is necessary to enable the industry to be carried on.
I take it the Minister is going to meet that in fact by his actions in issuing the regulation?
Amendment No. 9, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 10:—
In page 17, before Section 37 (2), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
This section shall not apply to any industrial work done in or about—
(a) the printing of newspapers, or
(b) the construction, maintenance, alteration, or repair of any telegraphic or telephonic installation, or
(c) the maintenance or working of a broadcasting station maintained and worked under Part II of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926 (No. 45 of 1926).
This amendment, in so far as it affects the printing of newspapers, was discussed already on amendment No. 1. The purpose of this amendment is to exclude from the scope of Section 37, which regulates working hours, persons employed in the printing of newspapers, in the construction, maintenance, alteration or repair of any telegraphic or telephonic installation and in the maintenance or working of a broadcasting station. These classes of persons would necessarily have to be excluded from the scope of the section or else these services could not be carried on. We originally intended that they should be excluded by regulation under Section 28, but on reconsideration it was considered more desirable that the exclusion should be effected in the Bill, because there can be no question as to the need for it.
The effect of the exclusion is to impose no regulation in respect of hours upon these classes of workers, but I do not think that need cause any apprehension, because the conditions under which such persons will be employed will be such that no abuse need be feared. Exclusion from the section involves and implies exclusion from Section 30 and the sections dealing with overtime. The three classes of work which I have mentioned are necessarily done at night. I do not say that all work upon telegraphic or telephonic installation must be done at night, but obviously the work could not be allowed to be left undone, otherwise we would not have any telegraph or telephone services after 8 p.m. and we would have no broadcasting service after 8 p.m. and no newspapers in the morning unless this amendment were inserted. The only question that arises is whether it is more desirable to have the exclusion effected in this way. In so far as the exclusion when made must be permanent, it is more desirable to have it by way of provision in the Bill.
I welcome the Minister's statement and I am also pleased to know this amendment brings in an exclusion from Section 30. There is one point the Minister has not dealt with, namely, how far it could be argued that the newspapers were employing shifts. I will ask the Minister if it would be possible to exclude them from Section 31. I need not go over what I said on a previous amendment. The Minister stated that newspapers were not a continual process and I think it is doubtful whether, under the provisions of this Bill, they are actually employing continuous shifts, or shifts at all. At the same time they do employ separate gangs of men and from that point of view it might be argued that they were employing shifts. I would like him in that connection to exclude them from Section 31.
I do not think that is necessary. The industry is clearly not one of those contemplated under Sections 32 or 33. Under Section 32 the industry must be a continuous process industry; that is, an industry the process of which must be carried on continuously and newspaper production is obviously not of that kind. In Section 33 the industries concerned are those which need not necessarily be carried on by a continuous process but are permitted to be carried on in that way. Newspapers are not carried on as a continuous process. As the Bill stands, the regulation of newspaper employment would obviously come in under Section 37. They are to be excluded by this amendment. The result would leave them uncontrolled in respect of hours.
While the Minister may find it necessary to meet some practical difficulty by this amendment, I think, by the manner in which he has attempted to do so, he has gone to quite unnecessary extremes. For instance, in sub-section (b) of the amendment he deals with "the construction, maintenance, alteration, or repair of any telegraphic or telephonic installation" and places that completely outside the section of this Bill dealing with working hours. Let me remind the Minister, as one who knows something about the matter, that it is not necessary to exclude the whole of the staff engaged in that kind of work in order to ensure that a limited number of people working outside the hours 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. may continue to work, in order that telephonic and telegraphic services should not be interrupted. Everyone wants these services to be maintained as one of the necessary things of modern life. Lots of people could make a case for the continuance of broadcasting after 8 p.m. but it would not be necessary to exclude the whole of the broadcasting staff from the scope of the Bill.
They are not excluded from the scope of the Bill.
From the scope of the section. It would have been better to have such exclusion effected under Section 28, because then it would be limited and it could be secured that the exclusion was only in respect of the people that it was proposed to employ from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
It would be in respect of a class.
It could be a well-defined class. I think the Minister has been stampeded with regard to excluding these people. If he had proposed it under Section 28 such people could be excluded under Section 37.
There are no such people employed by private employers.
The State is committed to observe the maximum 48 hours.
That section provides the 48 hours.
That is the legal maximum. The State employs people for 48 hours.
If they employ them longer they have to pay overtime.
It may be that the Minister is excluding them from the beneficial portions of this Act. I think he could go back to the exclusion Section 28 and get over the difficulty in that way. In order to provide for the work of 2 per cent. of the telephone and telegraph staff workers who work between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. the Minister by this new section is excluding the other 98 per cent.
We are not doing any harm. We are not worsening their conditions of employment.
The Bill as it stood was very much better than it is as amended. Forty-eight hours were given as the maximum plus the guarantee that when the Bill was got through we would try to keep the hours below 48.
The particular circumstance here is that the persons engaged are employed by the State. Whatever the State forces upon private employers it can adopt for its own employees. There is no legal difficulty.
It does not seem too much to say that the Government does not want to do it. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has been pressed for the last two years, and I think that is a fairly long period, to reduce the working hours of the group affected by this amendment. The Department of the Minister's colleague takes all that time, and even then we cannot get a decision. I suggest this amendment is unfair. In order to provide a skeleton service between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. the Minister is by this section taking out 98 per cent. of the workers already in. I think their inclusion is valuable. The Minister ought to be glad to get as many industrial workers as possible within the scope of this section of the Bill. Similarly in the case of the Post Office factory at St. John's Road where telephone parts and instruments are manufactured. These people would also appear to be excluded from the scope of this section. They are clearly industrial workers, yet they are to be excluded by this amendment because the work they do can be described as that particular type of work. Here again if the Minister had relied upon the powers he has under Section 28 he would do the minimum amount of harm instead of tearing through this section in such a brusque way. I hope the Minister will reconsider this matter.
I think this is a desirable way to do it. There are always means open to ensure that the conditions of employment of State employees will not be less favourable than those generally observed.
You are really dealing with the difficulty of 2 per cent. of the service and not 98 per cent.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 71; Níl, 9.
Tá.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Carty, Frank.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Davis, Michael.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Desmond, William.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Good, John.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, Finian
- Lynch, James B.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Nally, Martin.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Níl.
- Coburn, James.
- Corish, Richard.
- Davin, William.
- Everett, James.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keyes, Michael.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Norton, William.
- Pattison, James P.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smi th; Níl: Deputies Everett and Keyes.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 11:—
In page 18, line 23, Section 40 (1) (a) after the word "year" to insert the words "or thirty-six hours in any period of four consecutive weeks."
This amendment arises out of a discussion which we had here on the Committee Stage. The Bill permits of certain uncontrolled overtime being worked—not more than two hours in any day, 12 hours in any week, or 240 hours in any year. It was pointed out that the yearly maximum might be concentrated in a short period, and that that would be undesirable. This amendment provides that the overtime worked shall not be more than 36 hours in any period of four weeks; in other words, if the maximum overtime is being worked it cannot be worked continuously for more than three weeks. The next amendment works a similar change in the sub-section which regulates juvenile employment.
I do not know whether the Minister's attention has been drawn to one item, not in the amendment, which I would support, but in the section itself. I think the case of the person who has to work overtime has been very fairly met, but I should like to point out to the Minister that two hours on any day is too short, because the employer is allowed to employ the worker on overtime for twelve hours in a week. He would have to be employed on six days, therefore. I suggest to the Minister that he might allow four hours overtime on any day, because that would mean that in three days the overtime for the week could be worked. I am sure the Minister can very easily imagine cases, especially where the job is some distance, or divorced in some way from the work they were doing during the ordinary day, in which it might be desirable for a worker to work four hours overtime on any one day. I think the practice at present, where there is a case such as I have cited, is to work in longer periods than two hours and not to work them on consecutive evenings. I suggest to the Minister that if he would double the overtime for the day and leave the rest stand he would make this section more flexible.
My objection to that is that the purpose of the whole scheme is to discourage the working of overtime as a regular policy. But, if special circumstances should arise necessitating the working of a considerable amount of overtime, if a special job arises which has to be completed within a period involving long hours of work, then it should properly come under Section 41, the following section, under which, on application, a permit to employ workers in excess of the uncontrolled overtime can be given. In other words, work of that kind, involving a considerable amount of overtime, should be foreseeable, whereas the uncontrolled overtime under Section 40 is designed to facilitate the employer who may have work in excess of the normal, the aggregate of which he has been unable to foresee, and which must be done as it arises. But where foreseeable overtime is involved, then Section 41 should be applied and a permit should be sought, and such permit when obtained, would permit of the working of employees in excess of the uncontrolled overtime.
I should like to point out to the Minister that I am not increasing the amount of overtime work in a week, a month, or a year. I am merely allowing what I think is the usual practice. I will not say that it is in any way a universal practice, but, at the same time, it is the practice. I think the workers would themselves prefer to work longer periods on fewer evenings. I should like to point out that Section 41 involves an application to the Minister and a certain amount of foresight, etc. I am not seeking to increase the amount of uncontrolled overtime work. I am merely trying to make the provision more flexible and bring it more into line with the present practice.
I have not any very strong views on the matter, and I should like an opportunity of looking into it.
Amendment put and agreed to.
The following amendment was agreed to:—
In page 18, line 26, Section 40 (1) (b), after the word "year" to insert the words "or thirty hours in any period of four consecutive weeks."— (Aire Tionnscail agus Tráchtála.)
I move amendment No. 13:—
In page 18, line 41, Section 40 (2), to delete the word "particular" and substitute the word "specified."
I have not any strong views on the amendment and simply put it down to see whether the Minister was satisfied that the word "particular" did not restrict the powers which I think he ought to have in the matter.
The particular form of work must be specified in the Order. It is better.
So long as it is not narrowing down the interpretation.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 14:—
In page 21, line 20, Section 47 (5), after the word "employed" to add the words "provided that nothing in this sub-section shall be deemed to entitle a worker to payment for wages who is present on the premises of his employer and who is there for the purpose of performing outside work which it has been impossible to do owing to the inclemency of the weather."
I was asked to put the amendment down so that the Minister will get an opportunity of clearing up the point as to whether this clause had any effect as regards payment of wages. I do not think it has. It is an interval clause, and, I take it, only refers to the question of that interval and does not include the question of wages.
Quite. There is nothing in the Bill dealing with wages except the section dealing with agreements. In other words, there is nothing in this Bill which compels an employer to pay wages whether for work done or work not done, and this particular provision, which deems a worker to be employed, is only inserted for the purposes of the section, and the section deals solely with intervals of work.
That is what I understood.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The following amendment was agreed to:—
15. In page 21, line 29, Section 48 (1) (c), before the word "the" to insert the words "done in or about."—(Aire Tionnscail agus Tráchtála.)
I move amendment No. 16:—
In page 21, line 35, to add at the end of Section 48 (1), two new paragraphs as follows:—
(f) done in or about the construction, maintenance, alteration, or repair of any telegraphic or telephonic installation.
(g) done in or about the maintenance or working of a broadcasting station maintained and worked under Part II of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1926 (No. 45 of 1926).
The purpose of the amendment is to permit of work in connection with telegraphic and telephonic installation and broadcasting to be done on Sundays or public holidays. The same effect could be secured by regulations made under the section, but as such regulations will have to be made and, when made, will have to be permanent, it is better to have provision made in the section itself.
I do not think it is, for the same reason that I have already expressed. If the Minister is to make regulations under the section he can limit the effect of the exclusion. But if he is going to insert an amendment of this kind the effect is to exclude them completely from the benefits of the section.
It does not mean that they will have to work on Sundays, only that they may be employed on Sundays.
That means that it is permissible to employ them on Sundays.
I want to ensure that they cannot be capriciously employed and must only be employed when the need is shown and that the need should be the kind of need that the Minister would permit to be satisfied. It is much better for the Minister to make specific regulations to permit it to be done, rather than to exclude it in this general way.
The Deputy has a weaker case on this than he had earlier. The purpose merely is to make it clear that a worker may be employed, if required, upon the telephone or broadcasting service on Sunday. I do not think we can go without the Sunday telephone or broadcasting.
We can do without the broadcasting. I am not agreeing with the amendment, but I do not mind if you record it as being carried.
Amendment put and declared carried.
I move amendment No. 17:—
In page 21, before Section 48 (4), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
The Minister may, if he so thinks proper, by order make regulations permitting, in respect of any particular form of industrial work, the period of twenty-four consecutive hours' rest mentioned in the next preceding sub-section of this section to be given to any worker within seven days after the Sunday on which such worker was so employed as to be entitled under the said next preceding sub-section to such period of rest, and whenever any such regulations are so made the said next preceding sub-section shall have effect subject to the provisions of such regulations.
This amendment is inserted to deal with a special case that may arise. The only illustration I can give is in connection with newspapers again. As the Bill stands, if a worker is employed on Sundays for a period in excess of three hours, he must get a period of twenty-four hours before the following Sunday. Now, workers employed on the printing of morning newspapers start work on Sunday evening, generally, I understand, before 9 o'clock, and consequently are regarded as being employed upon Sunday for the purposes of the section and would be entitled to a period of 24 hours' rest before the following Sunday unless an order were made under this proposed amendment. In fact, they do not work on Saturday and get a period of rest extending from early on Saturday morning until the ordinary starting hour upon Sunday evening—in other words, the full normal period of rest—but it happens to be spread over Saturday and Sunday. It is proposed here to take power in such a case to allow the period of rest to be given within seven days after the Sunday on which the worker was employed. If the section were not changed it would involve considerable dislocation in the matter of morning newspapers.
Having regard to the nature of a certain type of industrial work to which I have referred previously—that is, railway work—I find now that it would be possible for men to be called out on relaying work or bridge work on Sundays. If they could get their rest between that Sunday and the following Sunday, it would be all right, but it is a common occurrence in that type of work that it may entail two, three, and sometimes four Sundays for the completion of the particular bridge or the relaying of the section of line concerned. The men are drawn from the various lengths of line adjacent to that district and it would cause considerable dislocation to have them laid off on the following week because they are specialists in that class of work and it would be impossible to get outside men to do it. Of course, it might only happen once in twelve months, but has the Minister provided for such cases?
To meet that case there would have to be a regulation excluding such workers from this section, but this amendment deals with a different type of case. As I say, the amendment is designed to give us power to vary the provision in regard to the period of rest in certain forms of industrial work.
Any particular form of industrial work?
As an illustration, I gave the case of the printing of daily newspapers, and I think the case that Deputy Keyes mentions can best be met by exclusion from the section.
Amendment No. 17 put and agreed to.
I move amendment No. 18:—
In page 21, lines 51-53, Section 48 (4) to delete all words from and including the words "one day's pay", line 51, to and including the word and bracket "leave)" and substitute the words "such sum as would be paid normally for the full number of hours ordinarily worked by a worker on a week-day.
The object of this amendment is that, where a holiday is granted, the payment for that holiday should be that of the normal number of hours that would have been worked on that day. There is a rather complicated arrangement made for the payment of holidays, which would come to a fractional amount. That, I think, will not appeal to the working-men or to the employers. If a man gets a holiday on, say, Monday, he should be paid, in my opinion, for the number of hours he would work if he had been working on a Monday. Similarly, for the other days of the week: if he gets a holiday on a Saturday—and that is normally a short day—he should get paid the short day's salary. I think that anything else is unworkable.
Deputy Beckett is thinking entirely of the case of the man paid by the hour, and obviously his amendment would be entirely inapplicable to the person employed at piece rates. In his case the other system of calculation would have to be applied.
I take it that they will be dealt with on their own. My amendment refers to the normal working day, and the effect of it is that the worker should be paid for that day at the same rate that he would have been paid if he had been working.
But the Deputy is proposing to take out what is in the Bill and insert another set of words which would deal only with one type of worker. The provisions in Section 23, which are transferred up to this section, provide for the calculation of the pay that is to be given, and while I agree that they are perhaps a little elaborate in relation to one public holiday as distinct from the annual holidays, nevertheless I think they are necessary in order to cover all the various types of case that will have to be dealt with.
Does not the Minister see the point of Deputy Beckett's amendment: that, if the holiday is on a Saturday, the worker should not get an ordinary day's pay for the Saturday, which is a short day?
I do not think that is the point Deputy Beckett is raising. That is the point we discussed on the last day, and my answer was that it cancelled out in seven years, whatever the position might be in regard to one year. The section says: "One day's pay, calculated at the rate which would be applicable if such day were a day of annual leave." Section 24 says that, in the case of a worker whose ordinary remuneration is wholly calculated by reference to time—and these are the workers in whom Deputy Beckett is interested—he shall be paid at the rate at which such remuneration was payable immediately before the commencement of such annual leave. I think that meets Deputy Beckett's case quite well and will occasion no difficulty in the case of the class of workers he has referred to. The only case in respect of which an elaborate calculation is required is the case of workers employed at piece rates.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 19:—
In page 22, line 7, Section 48 (4) (d), to delete the words "and fifty" and substitute the words "and twentyfive".
The intention of this amendment is to provide that, where workers are working on short time, there should be an average of hours which will bring them in to qualify. I think Deputy Keyes mentioned last week or the week before last, in discussing this matter, that a large number of employees were working on short hours —I think 35 hours a week—and that they would be disqualified under this clause unless they got a reasonable amount of hours. I suggest that 125 hours would bring them in reasonably.
The amendment is one which the Labour Party would accept enthusiastically, because it is in the interest of the workers. The 150 hours relates to a 48-hour week. I have an amendment down—the next amendment—which is designed to give the Minister power to vary that figure of 150 downwards in the event of the normal working week in any industry being less than 48 hours. If the normal working week is less than 48 hours, then I agree that that figure should be reduced, but where there is a 48-hour week ordinarily worked, then the requirement that the worker shall have worked 150 hours out of the 192 is not unreasonable. The only circumstances under which that figure would have to be reduced would be where the normal week was less than 48 hours, and I am taking power to deal with that position in the next amendment, which, I think, is the most satisfactory way of doing it.
Seeing that the Minister already has experience of industries working less than the 48-hour week and having regard to the fact that a considerable number have been shown to be working on short time, I think the Minister ought to accept Deputy Beckett's amendment. The 125 hours seems to be a very fair proportion. The other works out at 118, I grant you.
It is the same pro portion. This section must be related to the working hours provision which provides for a 48-hour week. So long as the 48-hour week is involved, that figure is not unreasonable.
I suggest, apart from that, that in this particular section, without prejudice to the general alteration made, that you could accept 125 hours during the period of four weeks as being very reasonable. You are only dealing in this section with a four-weeks period, but you have 1,800 hours in the entire year.
That figure 125 is only two-thirds. A man need only work two weeks in three.
That would bring in these people who have a perfectly good claim. I do not know what the Minister has in mind to meet existing circumstances, but I suggest it would be a good thing to take cognisance of that point now.
May I ask the Minister if it is his intention to issue a licence in this connection after the Bill becomes law or whether it would be necessary to make application?
To make application is not legally necessary. I do not say that application should not be made because it is always in the interests of the party concerned to bring particular cases to the notice of the officers of the Department who would be dealing with them. The intention is where the normal working week is less than 48 hours that then a reduction in this period will be effected under the proposed amendment. But the maximum must relate to the maximum working week. The number does not mathematically exclude it, but this figure and a similar figure have been fixed, and there must have been 75 per cent. of the full time worked in order to qualify the worker to be considered as "continuously employed."
Until the Minister makes regulations there will be no provision.
Deputy Beckett's amendment is incomparably better than anything the Minister has any notion of. The worker who was employed normally for 48 hours in the week may have been working at only three-quarters time for the last seven years. In that particular case the worker would have to work the full three-quarters time every day, every week, every month in the year in order to get any benefit under this section. The only way in which he could possibly get any benefit is by reducing the number of hours from 150 to 125.
Deputy Beckett is now getting suspicious about his amendment.
He is sufficiently clear about his amendment. He prefaced his remarks by saying that he was struck by the case made the last day, and he expressed agreement with it. The Minister, in fixing these hours at 150 in a period of four weeks, arrived at that by saying: "Take a normal working week at 48 hours; we require a person under this section to work 75 per cent. of that before he can qualify under this section." He is offering in his amendment No. 20 that if the working week is reduced to 44 hours, you are going to get 75 per cent. of 44, but he has no notion of going down to the limits that Deputy Beckett suggests. If it were a 36-hour week, the Minister may draw on his imagination to say that a person may work 75 per cent. of that in order to get the benefit of the section. The amendment is much better than what the Minister proposes in his amendment No. 20. It is incomparably better than anything that the Minister has any notion of doing under that amendment and he should accept it.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 48; Níl, 27.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Níl.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davin, William.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Everett, James.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- Norton, William.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Smith and Moylan; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Beckett.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 20:—
In page 22, before Section 48 (5), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
The Minister may, whenever and so often as he so thinks proper, by order make regulations varying, in respect of all or any particular classes or class of workers, both or either of the periods of 150 hours and 20 hours mentioned in the next preceding sub-section of this section by substituting for such periods or period such other periods or period as the Minister shall think proper, and whenever any such regulations are in force the said next preceding sub-section shall have effect, in respect of the workers or the classes or class of workers to which such regulations apply, as if the said periods or period affected by such regulations were varied in the manner stated in such regulations.
This is the amendment I referred to in the discussion on the previous amendment. In view of the vote on the previous amendment, I take it there will be unanimity in connection with this one.
It is a different amendment, of course.
Amendment agreed to.
I move:—
In page 22, before Section 48 (5), to insert the following sub-section:—
Where a day mentioned in sub-section (3) of Section 6 has been substituted as a public holiday for a day mentioned in sub-section (1) of that section every worker who by virtue of the provisions of this section would be prohibited from doing any form of industrial work on one of the days mentioned in the said sub-section (1) is entitled to recover from the employer one day's pay (calculated at the rate which would be applicable to overtime work) if he ceases to be employed by such employer at the date of the public holiday substituted as aforesaid.
Is there likely to be the same unanimity on this amendment?
Under this Bill it is provided that an employer, on his own initiative, without consulting the workers or the Minister, may substitute a Church holiday for a bank holiday. The Bill is drawn in such an unsatisfactory way from the point of view of the workers that an employer may offer to a worker a Church holiday in December in lieu of, let us say, St. Patrick's Day. In the meantime, he may dismiss the worker. If the worker were employed on St. Patrick's Day and if the employer were required to give him St. Patrick's Day and pay him wages for that day, and if he were required to consult the worker before he made any change such as substituting a Church holiday in December for St. Patrick's Day, then the worker would have got the benefit of receiving wages for St. Patrick's Day. But if he did not get the benefit of wages on St. Patrick's Day, he might lose his employment between that day and the date of the Church holiday in December.
This Bill in its present form could conceivably be used by employers to deprive workers of the six bank holidays to which they are entitled. The Minister must admit that under the Bill the employer can say to a worker that he proposes to substitute the 1st November, a Church holiday, for, let us say, Easter Monday. In other words, he postpones the day due to the worker for a period of seven months. In the meantime he may dismiss the worker and then the worker will be in the position that he will not get paid for Easter Monday or 1st November. That would be obviously unfair. This amendment seeks to provide that if the employer, on his own initiative, substitutes a Church holiday subsequent to the normal bank holiday for that bank holiday, and if the worker is dismissed in the meantime, the employer should be required to pay him wages in respect of the substituted bank holiday. The Minister, I think, should accept the amendment.
The notice which the employer gives is a notice not to an individual worker but to all persons in his employment. He cannot act in that way in respect of an individual worker. He must fix by notice the day on which all the workers in his employment will get a Church holiday in lieu of the public holiday. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent that Church holiday being a day previous to the public holiday.
Except that it is unlikely.
It is just as likely, particularly having regard to the fact that the two public holidays which cannot be substituted both occur in the same period of the year, Christmas Day and St. Patrick's Day. They cannot be substituted; they must be observed in any event. I have had regard to that fact and it is not at all improbable that a Church holiday before a bank holiday may be fixed. The notice of substitution is one that applies to the workers.
Surely that does not cover the point. If notice is given jointly in respect to the holidays will not that cover the individual?
The employer must still observe the six public holidays in the year and must give holidays to workers employed upon these days by him. Deputy Norton is talking about an employer who maliciously defrauds an individual worker. That cannot be done by an employer who shuts down his factory altogether. He cannot gain anything by the tactics which Deputy Norton says he might adopt.
Will the Minister admit that it is possible for an employer to say to his worker: "I am not going to give you any pay for Easter Monday?"
He might say: "We are going to work on Easter Monday."
That is a day the worker would normally be paid for. If the employer is going to say to the worker, "I am not going to pay you for being absent on Easter Monday——
If he says that to all his workers.
And if he says "but I will pay you instead on the 8th December," the employer may have a certain number of workers on Easter Monday, but between Easter Monday and the 8th December some may have left his employment and who is to pay those who had left before the 8th December comes round? These people were clearly entitled to payment for the bank holiday when it arrived. The substitution portion is a secondary consideration. The prior consideration is the recognition of the six days as bank holidays. Now, this worker that I have been mentioning is entitled to pay for Easter Monday, but he is told that he will not be paid for that day, and that he will have to wait until the 8th December. Meantime, the employer pays off some of his men including this man because there is no work for them. If it gets to that stage the man is not paid for the six days' holidays, so that what is being done has deprived the worker when he was in employment of his Easter Monday holiday with pay.
Some other worker gets the benefit on the 8th December.
Does the Minister really mean that? Is that said definitely or is it another try on?
Provided the employer substitutes the 8th December or any other date there will be employees employed by him on that day who will get the benefit.
That is a most fantastic argument. Clearly these people will get the holidays they are entitled to. It is possible under the Minister's amendment for a man, by dodging in and out of employment to get 12 public holidays. I suggest the Minister should reflect a bit before he tries to get that argument that he has used into his service. He really ought to accept this amendment.
Perhaps the Minister might clear up one point. Supposing an employer employs fewer men on the 8th December than on Easter Monday what is his position?
That may happen. The provisions of this Bill in relation to holidays are only of very special interest to the workers who are, more or less, in continuous employment. The workers not in continuous employment may complain that they are getting too many holidays. It is workers who are continually employed who benefit by these holidays.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 23; Níl, 53.
Tá
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus
- Burke, James Michael.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, William.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Everett, James.
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- Norton, William.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary
Níl.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Derrig, Thomas
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flvnn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Goulding, John
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Doherty, Joseph.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Everett and K eyes; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendments Nos. 22 and 23:—
22. In page 23, line 10, Section 49 (4) (b), after the word "worker" to insert the words "or for any such worker to accept any employment or payment with or from any such employer".
23. In page 23, line 16, Section 49 (4) (c), after the word "section" to add the words "and if any such worker accepts any employment or payment in contravention of the said next preceding paragraph, such worker shall also be guilty of an offence under this section".
On the last day I indicated my intention of introducing those amendments, which are necessary in order to make the enforcement of the agreed rate of wages effective. The purpose of the amendments is to make it an offence for the worker to accept—as it is an offence for the employer to pay—less than the agreed rate.
Amendments put and agreed to.
SECTION 49.
(8) Whenever an agreement has been registered in the register, any person may, within one month after the publication in theIris Oifigiuil of notice of such registration, apply to the High Court in a summary manner for the annulment of such registration, and on the hearing of such application the High Court may, if it is satisfied of either or both of the following matters, that is to say:—
(a) that the employer signatories to such agreement were not, at the date of such agreement, substantially representative of the employers interested in the form of industrial work to which such agreement relates in Saorstát Eireann or, where such agreement applies to part only of Saorstát Eireann, in such part of Saorstát Eireann, or
(b) that the worker signatories to such agreement were not, at the date of such agreement, substantially representative of the workers or the particular class of workers to which such agreement relates employed in the form of industrial work to which such agreement relates in Saorstát Eireann or, where such agreement applies to part only of Saorstát Eireann, in such part of Saorstát Eireann,
the High Court may annul the registration of such agreement in the Register.
In Section 49, sub-section (8)——
The Deputy cannot speak on the section on the Report Stage.
I only want to point out to the Minister a certain redundancy of words for the purpose of correcting them at this stage. I do not propose to discuss the section.
In Section 49 (8) the words "the High Court may" are repeated, and should be deleted.
Yes. That correction is necessary.
I move amendment No. 24:—
In page 26, before Section 53 (2), to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
No proceedings shall be taken against any person for a breach of any of the provisions of this Part of this Act if immediate notification (together with such particulars as will enable the Minister to identify the particular piece of work in which such emergency arose) is sent to the Minister of an occurrence of any such emergency as comes within the provisions of sub-section (1) of this section, and if the Minister is satisfied that such an emergency as aforesaid did in fact exist.
I understood the Minister to agree with me on the Second Reading that work of an emergency character, say in regard to burst water mains and so on, would be provided for. At the time, I made a suggestion that the work should be undertaken immediately, and that immediate notice should be given to his Department. Under the Bill as it stands at present, if a contractor undertakes work of national importance—say it is in regard to some dangerous structure, or the stopping of a serious water wastage—he may possibly have to defend an action in court for having successfully done that necessary work, and that is an unfair position in which to put any contractor or workman. I suggest that the clause embodied in the amendment would meet the whole case, and that the Minister should adopt it. It would mean that the Minister would get immediate notice, and that the contractor would not be put to the annoyance of having an inspector stepping in and summoning him to court. He would have a good case to defend, but having done probably very unpleasant work he should not be put in the position of having to defend himself.
I can tell the Deputy that what he sets out in this amendment will undoubtedly be the practice so far as the Minister is concerned, but the Bill does not provide that the proceedings must be taken at the suit of the Minister only. It provides that proceedings may be instituted by the Minister, but proceedings may be instituted otherwise than by the Minister, in which case the Deputy's amendment would appear to be inoperative. In any event it is perhaps undesirable to put the Minister in the position of judging the facts. What we are providing in the Bill is that it shall be a good defence for an employer, if proceedings are taken against him, to show that the circumstances which gave rise to the working contrary to the provisions of the Act were due to an emergency, but the proceedings might be instituted by a party other than the Minister, and, in those circumstances, the mere fact that a notification had been sent to the Minister would not be sufficient to prevent the proceedings taking place. So far as the Minister is concerned, it is certain that he would not institute proceedings against an employer unless the circumstances were different from those described in the amendment. If he had received notification of the fact that such nonobservance of the Act had taken place, due to an emergency, and if he satisfied himself that there was an emergency, he would not institute proceedings, but, as the Bill stands, it is open to any person, in the guise of a common informer, to start proceedings.
Is it a Guard who will start proceedings or an official of the Minister? What does the Act provide for?
What we are providing is that if proceedings are taken against an employer for a breach of the Act, it will be a perfectly good defence for him to show that the circumstances which gave rise to the breach were circumstances of emergency. That is as far, I think, as we can go in the legislation; otherwise, we are taking the function of deciding the facts from the court and giving it to the Minister, or to an official of the Minister, which would be undesirable in the circumstances.
Does the Minister realise that he is putting a difficulty in the way of getting that work done at all?
I think that in actual practice very few prosecutions will be taken otherwise than at the suit of the Minister, and obviously the Minister will not prosecute unless he is satisfied that there has been a breach of the Act in spirit as well as in fact.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 25:—
In page 28, Section 60, to delete all words from the word "on" in line 46 to the word "grounds", line 48.
The amendment is a verbal one. Deputy Norton drew attention to the fact that the words in Section 60 which it is proposed to delete really did not add to the meaning and might confuse its interpretation. I have no objection to the deletion of the words for which Deputy Norton pressed. The effect of the deletion is to leave the sense of the section unchanged.
Amendment agreed to.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
When will the next stage be taken?
Is it necessary to take it to-morrow?
I think it desirable to get rid of it, now that we have gone through it, and have it sent forward to the Seanad.
Are we to take all the stages to-morrow?
There is only one more stage. There can be no more amendments.
Final Stage ordered for to-morrow.
