Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 July 2012
312 Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding the Industrial Relations (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32405/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraMechanisms such as Registered Employment Agreements that allow for the legal extension of voluntarily negotiated collective agreements throughout a particular sector are widespread in almost all EU Member States. In the 21 EU Member States where it is legally possible to extend collective bargaining agreements universally across a particular sector, such extension is normally conditional on arrangements for establishing the consent of the parties and their representative status through specific conditions or thresholds that must be met before a collective agreement can be extended throughout a sector.
In most instances the test used to establish whether employers are representative is to focus on the number of workers in the particular class, type or group that are employed by the employers subscribing to the agreement affecting that category. This is the test that has been introduced in the Industrial Relations (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2011 and is given further emphasis as a priority consideration in any decision to register a sectoral agreement.
The issues of uncertainty that have arisen regarding the interpretation of the statutory requirement in Section 27 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1946, were the subject of a detailed commentary and of several recommendations in the Report of the Independent Review of Employment Regulation Orders And Registered Employment Agreement Wage Setting Mechanisms (The Duffy Walsh Report). The commentary in the Report outlined how the original provision in Section 27 of the Industrial Relations Act 1946 regarding the representativeness of the parties to an agreement had given rise to controversy, especially in scenarios where a group of employers might constitute a minority of the total number of relevant employers but could, nonetheless, employ the majority of the workers normally employed within the relevant sector.
In this context, the Government accepted the recommendations made by the Independent Review for changes to be made to the provisions of Section 27 of the Act of 1946 to provide that the question of whether a party an agreement is substantially representative should depend
in the case of trade unions, on the degree to which they are representative of workers to whom the agreement relates which should be measured by reference to the union's membership in the employment or sector concerned.
in the case of employers or employer organisation, the extent to which they could be regarded as representative which should be weighted by size, measured by the number of employees normally employed.
Accordingly, Section 27 of the Act of 1946 is amended by the 2011 Bill to give effect to this.
While there is a statutory requirement in the Act of 1946 that the parties to an REA are substantially representative of the industry to which it relates at the time of registration there is currently no requirement that they remain representative. Accordingly, Section 29 of the 1946 Act is being amended to address this anomaly and provides that the Labour Court may cancel the registration of an REA where it is satisfied that either the trade union(s) or employer parties have ceased to be substantially representative of workers or employers in the sector to which the agreement relates.
