Employers criticise report but unions more positive

EMPLOYERS HAVE criticised the recommendations of the Duffy-Walsh report on the joint labour committee (JLC) and employment regulation order (ERO) wage setting mechanisms, while the proposals have generally been welcomed by trade unions.

The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) described the report as “an economic fudge out of touch with the realities confronting tourism businesses across the country”.

IHF president Paul Gallagher said it represented a lost opportunity. The JLC system severely undermined the viability of Ireland’s tourism industry, he said.

The authors of the report “had failed to make an impartial assessment of the economic facts”.

“Feedback from participants who presented to the review group reveals the authors were solely focused on tinkering with the JLC system without any serious intention to consider abolition.”

Retail Ireland, the group representing the retail industry, urged the Government to ignore the recommendation in the report and to abolish the JLC in its sector.

Retail Ireland director Torlach Denihan said: “The JLC is costing the retail sector approximately €30 million annually. It is defying reason for the review to suggest that this is not a cause of job losses.”

Employers’ body Ibec said the conclusions of the review of wage-setting mechanisms, which favoured maintaining “the antiquated employment rights order system on the basis of protecting employment standards, are out of touch with the urgent need to sustain and create employment”.

Ibec director Brendan McGinty said: “Mere tinkering with the current procedures will be seen by employers as a failure to address the underlying competitiveness issues that are crucial to job creation and economic recovery.

“It will also be at odds with the expectation reported by the IMF in December that the review would be conducted with a view to the elimination of these agreements.”

Siptu president Jack O’Connor said that, while his union would have reservations about some aspects of the report, it provided “a rational objective analysis of the issues”.

“In particular, it addresses exaggerated claims for the employment-generating potential of the abolition of these mechanisms. These are motivated only by the desire of some unscrupulous elements among the employers to use the economic crisis to enhance their position at the expense of the most vulnerable workers in this country.”

John Douglas, general secretary of the union Mandate, which represents staff in the retail sector, issued a cautious welcome to the findings. He said the recommended retention of JLCs “clearly recognises the importance of these bodies in ensuring decent minimum terms and conditions for lower and middle-income workers, thereby helping to tackle income poverty”.

Unite also welcomed the report. “Unite has long argued that a cut would actually deepen the problem of unemployment through removing money from the pockets of those who spend their wages to live on.”