Labour Bill on union rights is welcomed

Trade unionists have welcomed a Labour Party Bill which proposes to resolve industrial disputes over union recognition, such as that at Ryanair.

The legislation, published yesterday and to be debated in the Dail on Tuesday, will allow disputes involving trade-union recognition to be referred to the Labour Court.

The Trade Union Recognition Bill, 1998, does not amount to mandatory trade-union recognition but provides a disincentive for employers to refuse to recognise them. The measures would allow the Labour Court to set pay and conditions in any company and would be empowered to establish these, even if the firm failed to engage.

The Bill proposes a mechanism to resolve disputes concerning failure to recognise a trade union and includes staff associations. Under the measures, a dispute would initially be referred to the Labour Relations Commission, which would try to resolve the row by conciliation.

If this failed, the matter could be referred to the Labour Court. If the court's recommendation was not complied with, it could make "an employment regulation order" which could include provisions for pay and conditions.

To be recognised, the union would have to be representative of "a substantial number of employees". A dispute could not be referred under the Bill if there was an existing union recognised for the workers concerned.

The Bill is in line with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions submission to the Government's high-level group on trade union recognition, set up under Partnership 2000.

At the introduction of the Bill yesterday, Mr Brendan Hayes said it amounted to a mechanism that workers in Ryanair would find most effective. He asked the Government to accept the Bill's principles.

The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, warned that a breakdown in the social partnership would be nothing short of "madness". Every objective analysis of the economy's performance in recent years had concluded that the major contribution to economic growth was social partnership, he said.

But this was being jeopardised more recently by Ryanair's refusal to allow its workforce the basic right of representation by a trade union. It was trampling on the spirit and letter of Partnership 2000.

According to Labour's spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, Mr Tommy Broughan, responsible for drafting the Bill, the Constitution guaranteed the citizen's right to form associations and unions. But the courts had not interpreted this as granting a right to be professionally represented by trade unions.