Vol. 27 No. 2
I move the following amendment:—
Before Section 2 to insert a new section as follows:—
Sub-section (2) of Section 5 of the Act of 1941 shall have effect as if it provided that the word "members" where applicable in respect of a body registered under the Trade Union Acts, 1871 to 1935, means members of such body resident within the State.
Perhaps it might shorten discussion if I knew if the Minister was accepting the amendment.
I will put forward arguments to induce the Minister to do so. I put down the amendment to meet the point that I raised on the last occasion when the Bill was given a Second Reading here. I want to make it very clear at the outset that the only question involved is the amount of the deposit that is to be made. There is no other question whatsoever involved in it. The relations between the Minister and a particular union, or between the Minister and members of the union, will not be affected in any way by the amount of the deposit that is paid. The deposit is a purely arbitrary thing. It may be £1,000, £2,000, or £20,000, according as the House agreed, but whether it was £1,000 or £20,000, the relations between the Minister and the union, or between the Minister and individual members, would not be affected in the slightest degree. I want to emphasise this point especially, in view of some remarks made, I think, by Senator Foran on the last occasion. He said that if this were accepted it would cause a lot of bother, and I think he rather suggested that if it were accepted it would mean the divorcing or cutting off of the members in Northern Ireland. Of course, I do not know how anybody could read that interpretation into it.
I say there is no justification for that suggestion. I venture to say, further, that there is no union in this country that has done more to preserve unity between its northern and southern members than the union affected, that is, the teachers' organisation. Something like 2,000 members, that is one-fifth of our membership, are in the Six-County area. Two years ago our president was a Portadown man. This year our vice-president, who will be president next year, is a Belfast man. I may say that we have maintained and preserved that connection at some considerable sacrifice so far as our southern members are concerned because more money is expended in the Six-County area from the central fund of the organisation than comes in from the Six-County area by way of subscriptions. I want to make that particularly clear and to show that even if this point that I am raising were conceded it would not in any way affect the relations between our northern members and the members in the Twenty-Six Counties.
I do not agree with the Minister in what he said on the last occasion, that there would be administrative difficulties. I cannot see where the administrative difficulties would arise. I have studied the Principal Act very carefully. As I said in the beginning, I do not think the relations between the Minister and the unions would be affected in the slightest way. The Minister mentioned the fact that members might be passing from the North to the South, and vice versa. That may be so in some of the unions, but I do not see how it would affect the Minister's dealings with these members. I fail to find anything in the Bill that would justify that statement.
The Minister also said that there was only a matter of £200 involved and, in a matter where the deposit was something like £6,000, that was a very small amount about which to make a fuss. That may be so, but it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. If a sum of £6,000 or £7,000 has to be found, the greatest difficulty arises in finding the last few hundred pounds. There is a special reason why that is so in this particular case. For instance, all our trustee securities have been lodged with the court and they would have been sufficient if the amount of the deposit was calculated in the way I suggest, but now this additional £200 that is necessary will have to be found in cash. I know that it does involve a certain hardship, in this way: Our union is in a peculiar position compared with other unions. It pays out something like £10,000 a year in medical benefits and in helping teachers to pay substitutes because, unlike other public servants, teachers who are ill have to pay their substitutes and the organisation has to help them to do that because the teachers are involved in heavy expenditure at a time when they most need money. It does constitute a hardship in that way. In fact, the Trade Union Bill has placed this particular organisation or union in a different position from any of the other unions. It is an excepted body, but if it continues to remains as an excepted body and does not apply for a negotiation licence it is deprived of the benefits of the Trade Union Acts and, therefore, cannot carry on its ordinary trade union activities without considerable risk to itself, to its officers and to its funds.
If, on the other hand, it does apply for a negotiation licence it is deprived of a privilege granted to any other union. It cannot apply to a tribunal and get a declaration such as other unions may get. In that way, there is nothing to prevent breakaway unions or cranks within the union starting out and forming a new union and causing disunion and disturbance. That privilege that has been granted to other unions in similar circumstances is denied to the teachers' organisation. I dealt with this point pretty fully when the Bill was going through and I tried to have these anomalies removed but I did not get very far. I tried to convince the Minister at the time. Here is an additional and peculiar grievance but I agree that it is comparatively a small point. I may say that I do not agree with the Minister's interpretation of the Principal Act. I do not think he would be straining the interpretation of it by ruling in a different way and saying that the amount of the deposit required might be calculated on the membership within the 26-county area. But if he insists on his present ruling, and says that he is compelled to rule in that way, I would appeal to him to concede this small and unimportant point. I would like to say again that there is no principle of any kind involved in it. It is really a small point as to how that amount is to be calculated.
Senator O'Connell, in moving his amendment, referred to his union—the National Teachers' Organisation—as the union affected by it. It is quite clear, of course, that this amendment would apply to any union, not merely to the National Teachers' Organisation, which had members in Northern Ireland. The National Teachers' Organisation, as he says, is in a different position from some other unions, in so far as it was exempted from the obligation of making a deposite under the Act. It decided not to avail of that exemption for reasons which, no doubt, appeared good to the executive of the union. They decided not to avail of the exemption, and to apply for a negotiation licence. It is also true that the particular type of occupation for which that union caters is of a somewhat different character from that catered for by other unions, in so far as its members are less mobile than the members of unions who follow other occupations and have much less frequently to travel in search of work.
The principle of the main Act was that the deposit required to be made by a licensed trade union should be related to its membership. That principal was modified, for obvious practical reasons, in the case of unions whose headquarters are outside the country. In the case of those unions only a very small fraction of their members would be resident here. The bulk of their members would be outside this country. In their cases, because of the practical difficulty of getting the deposit based on the total membership of their unions, the Principal Act provided that the deposit should be calculated on the basis of their members registered here, but all the unions which are Irish unions, which have their headquarters in Ireland and whose funds are controlled in Ireland, are in a different position A very large number of those unions have, in fact, members outside the country. They have members, in some occupations at least, who, as trade fluctuates, travel frequently from one area to another. I think it would be most undesirable—I feel sure that a very large number of the members of trade unions would agree with me in this—that the member of an Irish registered union should be regarded as being on a different standing from that of the general body of his fellowworkers merely because he happens to live in the Six Counties. I appreciate that that argument could not be pushed to the extent of involving any real difficulty or administrative problem for any of the unions concerned, but the fact is that the proportion of their members which those unions have resident in the Six Counties, in relation to their total membership, is so small that the additional deposit required on that account is not of any great significance to them.
That is true of the National Teachers' Organisation, and is also true of other unions. I do not think any of them are likely to experience any practical difficulty in making the full deposit, and that being so, I think it is preferable to maintain this position: that the members of those unions will have exactly the same standing within their unions in relation to the law relating to the trade union movement, whether or not they are resident here or in the Six Counties. I think that Senator O'Connell has a much more definite point in the fact that the phraseology of the original Act precludes his union from making an application to the tribunal for the sole right to organise. It is quite clear in that matter that his union is put into a different position from that of other unions of the same kind which are organised on a national basis. I would not agree at all with the point that he is trying to make in this amendment. On the whole, I would regard what he is seeking to achieve under it as an undesirable development.
The Minister has failed entirely to show us anything in the Principal Act that would affect, in any way, the relations between the Minister and any particular union or any particular individual, if the amendment were accepted.
Clearly, there would have to be a segregation of members for the purpose of calculating the amount of the deposits.
All that would involve is whether we should calculate on 10,000 or 8,000. I do not see that you would require any segregation to make that calculation. The Minister also said that there was a large number of unions with members in the Six Counties. Is he aware of the number of unions that have members in the Six Counties?
There are a number.
I can assure the Minister that the number of Irish registered unions with members in Northern Ireland is less than half a dozen.
That is not correct.
I can assure him, from inquiries that I have made, that it is so. As the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment, I suppose there is no use in my going ahead with it. The point involved is not a very big one though, in my opinion, it is an important one. I was glad to hear the Minister make the other point about our right to apply for a declaration. We cannot do it now, but there may be an opportunity of doing so later.
I would be prepared to consider representations from the National Teachers' Organisation on that point.
I am glad to hear that.
On that motion, I want to say a few words. I am glad that the Minister had consultations with the trade union movement, and that this Bill is the outcome of the understanding arrived at between both parties. This Bill certainly removes a great hardship that was imposed on the trade union movement under the original Act. To that extent it is welcomed in the trade union movement. There are some other snags in the original Act to be removed, to which I hope the Minister will give his attention in the near future. I sincerely hope that the conferences and discussions that took place between the Minister and the Trade Union Congress in connection with this Bill will be followed up by similar consultations in the future on other matters that affect the workers, and thereby help to remove the rancour which has developed throughout the country.
Organised workers are apprehensive because of certain encroachments that are being made upon their rights, encroachments which tend to deprive them of benefits which they have won at great sacrifice to themselves through the trade union movement. I think that in this case the Minister has acted wisely. I would suggest to him in conclusion, although it has no connection whatever with the Bill, that he should take immediate steps to make Order 166 more amenable. If he does that, he will certainly be doing a good day's work for the country in general. I will not develop the point.
This Bill was introduced following consultation with bodies associated with the trade union movement, and embodies a number of proposals made from those sources for the amendment of the Bill. I was somewhat perturbed to hear Senator Foran say that there are other snags in the Trade Union Bill which still require attention. I can only say to him that every point made to me by the Trade Union Congress or the other trade union bodies that approached me has been met in this Bill, and, if there are other snags, they have not been brought up in the same specific manner. I should hope now that we have reached a stage where this Act will not require further amendment. I do not want to suggest that legislation bearing upon the position of the trade union movement will not be necessary in the future. On the contrary, I should think that that position, like a number of other positions, is by no means static, and that, with the development of ideas amongst trade unionists and others as to the function which the trade union movement has to discharge in the economic life of the State, it is likely that further legislation of some kind or another will be forthcoming in the future. I should like to say also that, so far as I am concerned, I welcome consultation with the trade union movement on matters affecting the interests of organised workers. I think I can say that I have never failed to meet representatives of the trade union movement to discuss such matters on any occasion that they have requested it. I agree fully that it is in the interests, not merely of the Government, but also of the trade union movement, that frequent consultations between the Government and the Trade Union Congress should be held.
