asked the Minister for Labour the number of work days which have been lost due to strike action in 1986, 1987 and up to 31 September 1988; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Industrial Disputes.
15.
The Central Statistics Office is the official source of statistics relating to industrial disputes. According to the official figures there were 309, 178 days lost due to industrial disputes in 1986 and 264,339 days lost in 1987, which is a reduction of almost 45,000 days.
Official figures for the quarter to endSeptember 1988 are not yet available. However, estimated figures prepared in my Department indicate that a total of 114,000 days were lost due to industrial disputes during the first nine months of 1988. This compares with 232,500 days lost during the same period in 1987.
Therefore it seems likely that days lost during 1988 as a whole will be further reduced compared with 1987, a year in which the number of days lost was itself the lowest since 1973.
Are there any figures available in respect of the number of disputes involved in the days lost? Furthermore, is there any indication of the causes of the disputes? For instance, is there any indication of how many of those days lost arose as a result of employers refusing to recognise trade unions or who refused to allow their workforce to negotiate?
That seems to be a separate question.
There are figures for the number of strikes. In respect of the last question raised by the Deputy I think there would be very few days in total lost as a result of the relevant firms not recognising trade unions. Thankfully there are not many of those.
Would the Minister agree that increasingly it is becoming a feature of disputes that they arise because employers refuse to recognise trade unions? In recent months there have been two — one, the Irish Printed Circuits in Walkinstown, and another company in Naas, who refused to recognise the right of their workforce to join a trade union when a dispute arose and strike action was taken.
The question deals with the number of work days lost, nothing else.