The question of the recent arrangement about bringing up the pay of lower paid workers has been referred to at length in the Minister's opening statement. While this was originally intended to do some good. there has been a great deal of hypocrisy about it. The original idea was to bring the lower paid workers into some sort of relativity with those who are better paid without interfering with the general wage rates. This was interpreted and subsequently operated in such a way that when the lower paid workers got 25/- a week those who were not originally intended to be included succeeded in getting for themselves up to £3 per week under the same agreement.
There is no use in trying to cod the lower paid workers by saying: "We are giving you something special. You are now on your own, and you will probably be nearer everybody else." Those of us who deal with workers, negotiating with employers, know how difficult it is to try to get the pay of lower paid workers somewhere in line with what is being given to their better paid brethren. We find that as a result of increases granted to people who are already reasonably well paid, the lower paid worker's cost of living goes up and he gets nothing to compensate him for it. This has turned into a pretty bad joke because the lower paid worker is now the odd man out. While I agree there are people who would not be included in the category intended to be covered by this originally and who would be entitled to some adjustment in their wages, when it comes to the question of the £4,000 a year man getting an increase because the lower paid workers are getting something special, then the joke is certainly on the lower paid worker. The aspect of it which I think is particularly annoying is that we have now reached the stage where State employees, having got £1 a week increase, find that before they get it, the Department of Finance takes 7/-income tax which brings it down to 13/- and if they are living in a local authority house—as many of them are—because of a special arrangement made by Deputy Blaney when he was Minister for Local Government, which has been carried on since, the local authority collects a further 2/6d out of that £1 increase as a rent increase. This £1 increase firstly becomes 13/- and with the 2/6d rent increase it then becomes 10/6d. The lower paid worker is told that this increase is to compensate him for the fact that he has been very badly paid. On top of that the stamps are to be increased by 3/6d a week on the 1st January next and this will probably mean an extra 1/6d to be paid by the worker. We find that the lower paid worker is worse off than he ever was.
Something has got to be done about this. The Government have no right whatever to talk about increases for lower paid workers if they are not going to give them something reasonable. Anybody who thinks a man in the year 1969 and 1970 can rear a family on £11 a week does not know what he is talking about. I would suggest that the new Minister for Labour-look into this. I know that negotiations were carried out with the trade unions on one side and State representatives on the other and they discussed things very fully, but nobody seemed to understand what was going to happen when the scheme was put into operation.
We have one case where the Department of Finance only a week ago got sanction from itself for payment of this increase. I thought this had been tied up before the election took place last June but, apparently, I was wrong. They are only now in the course of giving the increase to the employees concerned. I know quite well it would not happen with the higher echelon; it is only the person at the bottom of the line who gets "clobbered" every time. On more than one occasion since the agreement was in operation I have had to approach the Minister for Finance for the purpose of getting him to force other people to do what was originally intended. One Minister I interviewed with a group of my trade union colleagues on the question of wage increases, after listening, I thought, intently to the case being put that women workers should get the same increase as men, blandly came out with the remark that he thought this scheme did not come into operation until after the 1st of April next. We talk about joint responsibility in the Cabinet for things like this, but here is a case where a Minister did not know, possibly he did not care, and it was only when we referred him to the Minister for Finance that he discovered the scheme had been in operation since the 1st June of this year. I know there is an attitude in this country of the haves and the have-nots. It is running right through this sort of thing. The man working in a river or in a forest finds it very difficult to get even a small increase paid to him once the increase has been sanctioned. This is not good enough.
When the scheme was being discussed it was agreed on existing wages without any other change that certain increases were to be given, but the Government Department concerned wrote into this scheme, and I quote:
These increases have been sanctioned subject to the conditions:
(1) that where workers are on autonomous rates of pay these will cease, or where there is a link with outside employment this link will now be broken; and for the future, wage movements for drivers and gangers will be related to changes in the basic rate for labourers.
(2) that incentive bonus, where payable, will for the period 1st June to 30th September be calculated on the pre-June 1969 basic rate. From 1st October 1969 bonus will again be calculated on full basic wages.
This was added after the agreement had been made and if we wanted to see these people getting any increase at all this year we had to agree to this blackmail—there is no other word for it—which was used for the purpose of trying to force workers to accept less than it was at first intended they should get. When I look around and see how well some people are paid for doing very little I get very angry when I see other people working terribly hard, doing important work, which nobody wants to pay them for if they can possibly get out of it.
The onus is on the State to give a substantial increase to these people irrespective of what wage negotiations are carried out at a later date. I am terribly disappointed at the fact that what was originally intended to bring the lower paid worker into line has turned out to mean that they are given an increase, which having been applied to everybody else, leaves them in the same position, and in many cases in a worse position, than they were before the negotiations started.
We have heard a lot about the maintenance craftsmen's strike. As the Minister is a sensible man I should like to ask him if he has ever wondered why it is that, when a wage demand is being discussed and an offer is made, or when no offer is made by the employer, the employer sticks his heels in the ground and says: "I will not give any more". The workers were on strike for weeks; nobody wants to tramp a picket line if he does not have to, because there is no pleasure for a worker to be walking up and down outside an employer's premises with a placard on his shoulder knowing that the amount of strike pay will not keep his household for the coming week and also knowing that unless he does not do this his employer is not prepared to see reason. The position in this strike was that—as in so many others—at first not an inch was yielded but, as the weeks went by, further and further offers were made. I would suggest to the Minister that the final offer could have as easily been made before the workers went on strike as when it was made, when they thought they had them grounded to the dust.
I should like to sound a warning that some day the workers in this country will get fed up with this treatment of trying to wear them down and absorb whatever funds their trade unions may have: a strike will take place which will rock this country unless a more sensible approach is made by employers to the question of wage negotiations. There are employers who are Members of this House and from time to time I have had the job of negotiating with some of them. I have always found them quite reasonable because most of them do understand what is a reasonable offer. But there are far too many people in this country—the bigger the firm the tougher they think they are—who will hold the worker to ransom in the hope that they will save a fraction of a penny. They tell us that production costs will go so high that we will lose our export markets if they give an increase. Subsequently, when they do give an increase and they do not lose their export markets, we are able to read in their annual reports about the tremendous profits they made during the year.
Some of these firms caused untold hardship to business and to the workers before they agreed to give a reasonable increase in wages. This is something that has got to be faced up to. I know the previous Minister and his officials, with the best will in the world, tried to do something but they did not go far enough. I would suggest that greater interest be taken in this matter, by the Minister and his staff, because the whole key to the prosperity of this country is the way in which labour relations are handled.
Let me say something else. A number of serious strikes have occurred in this country, some of them in semi-State bodies, because, first of all, the person sent to negotiate was the next thing to the messenger boy. There is no point in that. If negotiations are taking place and if the trade union send their top men, it is an insult to their intelligence for the other side to send a fellow who, after discussing the matter for a couple of hours, says, "I am sorry. I will have to refer back." And he refers back to somebody else and that person in turn refers the matter to somebody else and one does not know with whom one is dealing. Let us face this in a reasonable way. When negotiations are taking place it is up to the employers to send their top men and matters can be settled across the table. Every dispute has been settled across a table. That is the place to settle disputes. Sooner or later people have to sit down and there has to be given and take. We do not get 100 per cent on our side. Let me say, we do not expect to get it. The employers cannot expect to get away with 100 per cent on their side and they do not expect to get it.
There is the idea of wearing down trade union funds. That, apparently, is an idea that many employers start off with. That should be abandoned because no trade union will be allowed to go broke because of the fact that their funds have been paid out in strike pay. An injury to one is the responsibility of everybody in the trade union movement and we will see to it that nobody will have to go back on his knees to work. There will be no more 1913s in this country. As long as that is remembered by employers, we can make a fair effort to negotiate.
The question of a cooling-off period has been referred to here. Let me repeat that the cooling-off period should occur before the expiry of the agreement. Negotiations, on wages particularly, should start much earlier. If the matter is approached in a reasonable way, it can be settled and there is no necessity to have any cooling-off period afterwards.
Secondly, while we all deplore unofficial strikes and feel that the only way to deal with them is through an organised group on the workers' side and the top men representing the employers, at the same time, an employer who deliberately dismisses a worker without giving him or his trade union an opportunity of discussing the matter, is asking for trouble. The biggest difficulty that we have—I have found this in many cases—is that when a man is dismissed, often in the wrong, it is very difficult to prevent his fellow workers from walking out the gate, declaring that if the man concerned is not going to work they will not work either. There is no use in trying to persuade men that they are wrong in standing by a man whom they consider to have been unfairly treated. It is the easiest thing in the world for the employer to suspend a man and for his trade union then to ask the employers to discuss the matter. There is no trade union who will not, within a couple of hours, have somebody available at top level to discuss matters. Workers are responsible people and when a case is put to them which they can understand and agree is fair there is no question of trying to bully. An employer who thinks he can boot a man out the gate first and then start being tough with those who are left is looking for trouble and he will get trouble. I or anyone else in the trade union movement do not condone the unofficial strike but it is one case in which it is awfully difficult to condemn it.
We are told of the terrible losses that have occurred as a result of the maintenance strike. While the handling of the maintenance strike was not perfect on any side, at the same time we must remember that it is very annoying to somebody doing a skilled job and who cannot be done without, in whose absence the job cannot continue, to find people who are doing a far less important job getting two to three times what he is being paid at the end of the week and getting substantial increases without, apparently, even having to bother asking for them. These things always cause trouble. This is a matter that will have to be dealt with in some other way.
There is another matter with which the Minister has a very slight connection and about which he might talk to his colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare. It is the matter referred to in his speech that there were 12 persons out of work for every one on strike. Of course, there were. But, do you know what happened those 12 persons? If they were not supported by their trade union, they might starve as far as the Government were concerned because of the archaic arrangement which means that if there is a strike in a job and if somebody is locked out that person is not entitled to draw social welfare benefit. If men are locked out they are not entitled to social welfare benefit. Is there any justification for that? I do not think there is. If there were a storm or a flood or an explosion in a factory, as a result of which men were laid off, the men can draw social welfare benefit but if there is an explosion in men's minds in regard to something that they consider unfair, then whoever is affected, even remotely, must starve as far as the Department is concerned, the object, of course, being again to dissipate trade union funds by making the trade union pay them strike pay or to starve the people concerned into putting pressure on those on strike to return to work. In 1969 such things should not happen. It should not be necessary for anybody to have to do without food for the reason that it is considered that they are connected with a strike from which they will not benefit and which they were not instrumental in starting or continuing. I suggest that the Minister and his colleague in Social Welfare should have a hard look at this and I am quite sure that they will come up with an answer to the problem.
We have heard talk about the Trade Union Bill which was to be introduced and somebody here—I do not think it was the Minister—got rather confused about the Educational Company judgment and suggested that it would be necessary to have a referendum to change the Constitution for the purpose of having an amendment. The former Taoiseach, Mr. Lemass, in this House gave a solemn promise to me that he would see to it that when the Trade Union Bill was introduced this judgment would be dealt with and the necessary section would be enshrined in the Bill to ensure that what happened then would not happen again. Mr. Lemass was not a fellow who was in the habit of making wild statements and he must have checked with somebody before he made the statement because a month afterwards I challenged him again on the subject. In the meantime everybody knew that he had made the previous statement and, therefore, there was ample time to correct it. He repeated the assurance. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions in writing had an assurance that this would be corrected. Yet, we were told it was not included in the Bill that Deputy Dr. Hillery introduced and in the new one that is being introduced somebody has mildly suggested that it will require a referendum as the Constitution would have to be changed.
That is all a lot of nonsense. The Minister should make a statement when replying as to whether or not he proposes to honour the promise given by the former Taoiseach. Does he intend to have the effect of the judgment altered and, if he does or does not, he should let us know why. There is no reason why the Minister cannot do that.
There were a number of provisions in the Bill introduced by Deputy Dr. Hillery—I do not want to deal with them at length—which could not be accepted by the trade union movement. A new Bill should be introduced which would cover the various points that were objectionable in the previous Bill. It would not be the first time that that was done. We remember what happened a few years ago. The Succession Bill was introduced and it was changed twice before it was passed into law. There is no reason why we should not have this done again.
Numerous references have been made to the question of the increase in the consumer price index, as it is now called, and the effect that this would have on wages or the effect that wages have on it. Many of us have now reached the stage where we are convinced that there should be some other way of adjusting living costs of the ordinary person because wages increases which are given are usually given, in the case of certain types of workers at any rate, long after the cost of living index has risen so high that the workers are always trying to catch up on what they have already spent.
I remember some years ago listening to the former Taoiseach talking about a wage increase having affected the cost of living. It was the famous five per cent increase. He completely forgot that the increase in the cost of living took place two months before the second phase of the increase in wages became operative so that, in fact, the wage increase could not possibly have affected the increase in the cost of living and, therefore, the reference to it was entirely irrelevant. So long as prices keep going up there is no reason at all why workers should be prepared to accept wages which do not give them a fair living. This applies to industrial workers and, when I speak of industrial workers, I included in them agricultural workers. We are always claiming here that agriculture is our primary industry but, when we come to deal with workers in general, we divide them into two classes, agricultural workers and industrial workers, as if agricultural workers were born into a separate caste.
It was suggested that any agreement should run from 2½ to three years. None of us has much objection to that except that it is so very difficult when negotiating an agreement now, which will not expire until the end of 1972, to estimated what the likely increase in the cost of living will be in that period or how the proposed increase will be related to what will be paid in 1972. If one makes an agreement for too long a period and workers find that that agreement does not give them the compensation they expected and also discover that others, who do not enter into a 2½ or three year agreement, have got very much more than they did, there is a very strong inclination to attempt to get some type of interim arrangement. If that is successful everybody immediately says that the trade unions and the workers are breaking their agreement. We should always remember that the workers concerned have only one commodity to sell, their labour, and an increase in wages represents to them shoes for the children, a new suit for the man of the houses, a shirt, or something like that. Even the kind of food they eat depends on what the wage packet is like. If some of those who are so tough about the necessity for holding down wages did a few trips around the working-class people in this country there would probably be a different outlook on this whole question of wages for workers.
There is then the question of pension rights. Recently a rather extraordinary thing happened. As the Minister is aware, some years ago a pension scheme was introduced for Bord na Móna workers. It was negotiated between the board and the trade unions. It was sent to the Minister for Transport and Power of the day and it was rejected by him. Subsequently a very much reduced pension was introduced for Bord na Móna manual workers.
When it came before this House I proposed a motion that the pension scheme be not ratified. That was discussed and I always remember the present Minister for Health making the case that the pension scheme was adequate because, added to social welfare benefits, the worker would have 75 or 80 per cent of what he was earning. When I questioned the Minister as to the year in which this would occur he admitted to me he was thinking about the year 2003 because it was a 40-year period. In the year 2003, the Minister estimated, these men would have 75 per cent of their wages as pension. This is a contributory scheme and the fund is growing. Recently those of us who deal with the workers were very surprised to see the following notice in one of the midland papers, the Midland Tribune to be exact, in which it was stated:
Following representations by Mr. G. Connolly, TD, concerning pensions for manual labourers employed by Bord na Móna the Minister for Finance, Mr. C. Haughney, has written to him that "proposals relating to pension arrangements for these workers and the grant of pensions to them have recently been put forward by my Department for consideration by the Department of Transport and Power and Bord na Móna. These proposals would be advantageous to the pensioners and should be accepted. Arrangements will be made to implement them as soon as possible."
Here we have the sanctioning authority, the Department of Finance, writing to a Government Deputy in the midlands to tell him they had drawn up a new pension scheme. Did anybody ever hear such nonsense? The whole idea was for the purpose of gaining a certain amount of political kudos because neither the Minister for Finance nor his Department had any right—good, bad or indifferent—to do any such thing. If they did have proposals which they thought might be of interest the trade unions were as much entitled to get a copy of those proposals as was the employer side. We wrote to the Department of Finance and asked them to let us have a copy, but they were very coy. Eventually they said the matter was not as it appeared.
My own opinion is that, by some strange chance, something which was being prepared for somewhere else happened to fall on the plate of Bord na Móna because, as the Minister is aware, application has been made for a pension scheme for certain State employees in the Department of Lands, the Department of Agriculture and the Board of Works; I believe the pension scheme referred to was one which someone had cooked up for these particular workers and, by some accident, it was communicated to Deputy Connolly. I do not know him; I am sure he is quite a decent fellow.
