DISPUTES brought to the Labour Court are becoming increasingly complex and are taking longer to resolve. Nevertheless, the court managed to process 624 cases in 1995 compared with 533 in 1994, according to its latest annual report.
An indication of the increasing complexity of disputes and labour law is the fact that for the first time in its 50 year history, the court referred a number of issues on interpretation of the EU Equal Pay Directive to the European Court of Justice.
The court's report will reinforce demands by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for more resources for the State's industrial arbitration machinery.
Earlier this year, Mr Kieran Mulvey the chief executive of the court's sister agency, the Labour Relations Commission, floated the idea of making arbitration procedures binding. ICTU has made it clear that it would only consider such a suggestion if the court and the LRC were provided with greater back up facilities with which to monitor national pay agreements and mediate between employers and unions.
According to the 1995 Labour Court report published yesterday, a large part of its time was taken up with referrals from the LRC. The LRC provides a conciliation service to employers and unions which is normally the first stage in trying to resolve disputes. Last year, there were 303 cases referred to the court, compared with 263 in 1994.
Another substantial increase in court business involved "section 20" cases. These are where a union calls on the court to investigate a dispute and agrees to be bound by the outcome. The number of cases processed increased from 65 in 1994 to 98 in 1995.
The number of equality cases also increased, rising from 26 in 1994 to 38 in 1995.
As usual, by far the biggest category of cases heard by the court involved procedural disputes. These totalled 100 in 1995.