Traditional role of trade unionist changing in era of labour laws

Industrial relations:As workers acquire more and more rights based in law - many of them negotiated by the trade union movement in social partnership talks - the role of the trade unionist on the ground is becoming increasingly difficult to define.

There are now more than two dozen separate pieces of legislation in place governing the employment of workers, with more to come in the months ahead.

This "explosion" in labour law, as it has been described, has seen increasing numbers of workers take their cases to a rights commissioner or to bodies such as the Employment Appeals Tribunal (Eat).

Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy is one of a number of highly-experienced industrial relations figures who have questioned whether, given the development of employment law, the current Irish system could still be characterised as "voluntarist" - where the parties are left to negotiate settlements between them rather than being bound by legal rules or arbitration.

Mr Duffy says issues that go to the Labour Court can be divided into two categories, disputes over rights involving individuals or disputes of interest which relate to collective bargaining.

While the bulk of the Labour Court's work is still devoted to industrial relations disputes over issues of interest, it now has an expanding role in adjudication on disputes over issues of rights, he points out.

But if labour legislation allows workers to take grievances to independent third parties for adjudication, does this undermine the trade unions in their traditional role of defending employees' rights in the workplace?

Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary David Begg says that for 100 years the trade union movement has been canvassing to maximise the body of legislation which protects workers' rights. "The problem very often is that that protection is minimalist in nature. It affords a type of safety net but it does not afford good conditions of employment as a minimum standard", he says.

Mr Begg also argues that legal developments such as the introduction of the minimum wage did not come about by accident but rather as a result of negotiations involving congress and the social partners.

He also suggests it may not be cost effective for workers to take their own case to such third parties rather than going through their trade union.

"If somebody takes a case to Eat using a solicitor, the tribunal has a maximum compensation of two years pay. It will offset against that two years what measures you took to mitigate your losses. And in a full employment economy it may take a very expansive view of what that should be.

"You find now at the moment that the average compensation coming out of unfair dismissals is around €5,000-€6,000. Now out of that if you have to pay your solicitor, you are not going to come home very much better off. Whereas if we went in we would obviously be trying to get the person reinstated as a first thing.

"The other thing is that not all disputes about people are easily solved by legal remedies. You need very often somebody who can conciliate in that person's situation with the employer," Mr Begg says.

However, Mark Fielding of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association argues that with the raft of legislation in place, employees can have issues addressed without union involvement.

He maintains that union involvement can make matters worse and undermine flexibility in the workplace.