Frank Crowley
Ceist:31 Mr. Crowley asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the proposals, if any, he has to improve the rewards for persons working in low-paid employment.
Written Answers. - Low-paid Workers' Rewards.
Under our system of industrial relations, terms and conditions of employment of workers are generally determined by the process of free collective bargaining. However, statutory minimum rates of pay and conditions of employment are established through Joint Labour Committees (JLCs) which operate in areas where collective bargaining is not well established and wages tend to be low. The JLC system covers some 65,000 workers and this will be increased to about 100,000 when an Employment Regulation Order (ERO) is made under the recently established JLC for catering employees in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire.
The Industrial Relations Act, 1990 contains measures to improve the functioning of existing Committees and speed up the establishment of new ones. The Act also makes a number of technical changes which improve the enforcement of the terms of EROs. In particular, fines for breaches of EROs have been increased substantially. Overall, the provisions of the Industrial Relations Act, 1990 are designed to ensure that the Joint Labour Committee system functions efficiently and effectively.
The position of low paid workers was recognised in the Programme for National Recovery and the Programme for Economic and Social Progress which were specifically weighted in their favour. Minimum pay increases, combined with improvements in the Family Income Supplement and income tax reductions, have resulted in an appreciable improvement in the position of the low paid. Among the income tax priorities set out in the Programme for Government is the removal of the low-paid, especially families, from the tax net. An estimated 13,500 low-paid workers will be removed from the income tax net as a result of the increase in exemption limits announced in the budget.