Bill will 'wipe eyes of workers' says Higgins

A Bill to speed up the resolution of industrial disputes and create a code of practice on victimisation was condemned in the Dáil yesterday as a "time-wasting" effort designed to "avoid the central question of mandatory trade union recognition by employers".

The Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, said: "We need a trade union recognition Bill, not an excuse pretending to be like it." He claimed that the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill and the 2001 Act it would amend, "aims to wipe the eyes of workers by pretending we have some kind of substitute".

Mr Higgins said it should be "an automatic right of workers to join a union and to have that union recognised by their employer". He accused the trade union leadership of being "gutless", and said that, because of the concessions given by ICTU, it was no wonder there were employers who were prepared to "act like jackboot generals in the way they treat their workers".

However, the Government rejected the criticism, and the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, stressed that there was a "consensus" to "maintain voluntarism as the preferred approach to dispute resolution".

Standing in for the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, he pointed out that in the negotiations on the national agreement, Sustaining Progress, "trade union and employer representatives reaffirmed their agreement to this approach", and the Bill reflected this.

The legislation is aimed at implementing two specific measures in Sustaining Progress. It gives new dispute-settling powers to the Labour Court in situations where no arrangements for collective bargaining are in place, and it puts in place a code for preventing and dealing with victimisation of workers who seek trade union representation.

"It is not the Government's policy to impose legislation in the industrial relations arena where parties are prepared to work together towards achieving progress in this area," Mr Dempsey said.

Most TDs welcomed the Bill during the two-day preliminary debate before the legislation goes to the Committee on Enterprise and Small Business.

It was introduced by the Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Frank Fahey, who pointed to Ireland's system of industrial relations as "essentially voluntary in nature". But "the Government recognises that there is a need for dispute-settling mechanisms in cases where employees wish to be represented by a trade union or accepted body but collective bargaining does not take place".

Fine Gael's employment spokesman, Mr Phil Hogan, said the bottom line about trade union membership was employment. If a company chose not to have trade union representation, "it should be a matter for the company involved and its employees because employment opportunities have been created for the people engaged in that work".

Labour's employment spokesman, Mr Tommy Broughan said there was an urgent need for the victimisation code because of the "blatant victimisation" in the dispute over union recognition at Oxigen, the waste management company.

Mr Dempsey said the Bill would allow Oxigen issues to be investigated within a specific timeframe. The Independent Donegal TD, Mr Niall Blaney, said that, "even though people in Donegal might believe this Bill is too little too late, we are moving in the right direction".