DELEGATES to the annual Mandate conference in Cork have been congratulated by the Minister for Commerce, Science and Technology, Mr Pat Rabbitte, on the way they had fought the Dunnes Stores dispute.
Mr Rabbitte warned the company that, if it continued with its present policy of refusing to implement fully the settlement proposals ending last summer's strike, this carried "the most serious implications for the future of, industrial relations in this country".
He said Government Ministers were supposed to be impartial in industrial disputes. But occasionally a dispute came along in which there was a clear case of right and wrong. He regretted very much that, as of today, the company had not accepted the Labour Court recommendation.
"It has the most serious implications for the future of industrial relations in this country if the principle of voluntarism is abrogated by a major organisation on either side," he said. There was "a moral duty and obligation on all parties" to use and accept "the outcome or adjudication" of the court.
Addressing the delegates in Cork as "a fellow trade unionist", he described the Dunnes Stores dispute as "an important strike for the entire trade union movement, pursued with imagination and no little will".
Referring to the issue of longer opening hours for pubs, Mr Rabbitte said bar staff must "dread the approach of that nightly watershed in the cultural and spiritual life of our nation, the mad countdown to `Time Please'. I don't know what the sinking of the Titanic was like, but the rules of engagement at closing time probably bear some resemblance to what it was like on that night."
Mr Rabbitte said most of continental Europe seemed to get on fine with a more liberal licensing regime. "King Canute approaches to change, which have bedevilled both employers and trade unions in this country, are recipes for disaster," he said.
However, he warned that the need for more atypical employment and working hours should not be an excuse for exploitation. "I am not prepared to see atypical workers be they part time, work sharing or whatever - marginalised or discriminated against. Practices such as zero hour contracts, unnecessary casualisation and so on are unwelcome blots on the labour market lanscape."
He said a new Bill, due to be introduced later this year in order to comply with the EU directive on the Organisation of Working Time, will oblige employers to give advance information on hours of work "where reasonably possible to do so". Taken with the 1991 Part time Employees Act, this should help eliminate zero hour contracts and "significantly ameliorate the working conditions of atypical workers".
While he accepted the reality, that up to 20 per cent of the workforce is now engaged in Sunday working of some form, Mr Rabbitte was not convinced the "explosion" in opening hours taking place in the retail trade was either necessary or socially useful.
Shop workers had a right to insist that working unsocial hours be voluntary, must attract higher rates of pay and be subject to the normal rules of industrial relations and collective bargaining. The new Bill would ensure this happened and would also oblige employers to provide employees with a minimum 24 hour break between Sundays, he told the conference.
The Minister also defended national pay agreements. Before the negotiation of the Programme for National Recovery in 1987 it was no secret that, in economic terms, we were on the slide" and being equated "to a Third World economy".
The Programme for Economic and Social Progress and the Programme for Competitiveness and Work had been "the backbone and the rock on which we have been able to resurrect our economy", he said.
BY the year 2000 part time working will account for 46 per cent of jobs in the retail sector, the assistant secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Ms Patricia O'Donovan, told the Mandate conference in Cork. She said their rights have to be addressed in any new agreement between the social partners to replace the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
In order to protect this growing clement in the workforce, she said congress would be seeking the outlawing of "zero hour" (where no minimum hours are guaranteed but the worker is expected to be available if needed) contracts. Legislation was also needed to ensure part time workers received the same hourly rates is full time staff. Companies should also be prevented from using the practice of continually renewing temporary contracts in order to evade their responsibilities.
The ICTU executive had recently adopted a report on "Minimum Standards in Atypical Work" and would be pursuing it in talks on a successor to the PCW. But even if no new agreement was made, "Congress and our affiliated unions will vigorously pursue a national campaign for fair play for atypical workers", she said.
Congratulating the union on its stand at Dunnes Stores last summer, she said public support would continue to be a vital element in the battle to win rights for atypical workers.