Social partner involvement in the 2002 NAP

This feature examines social partner involvement in Ireland's 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) for employment. It is one of a set of similar features for all the EU Member States, written in response to a questionnaire.

This feature outlines how Irish social partner organisations have been involved in Ireland's 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) on employment. Under the European employment strategy, each year the EU Member States draw up NAPs in response to the annual Employment Guidelines.

Similar features on social partner involvement in the 2002 NAPs have been drawn up by the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) national centres in all the EU Member States, in response to a questionnaire. Details on the background to this exercise, and the questionnaire used, can be found at TN0206102F. Readers are advised to refer to the questionnaire in conjunction with this feature.

Procedural aspects

The Irish government consulted a wide range of organisations about the 2002 NAP- the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC), the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), and the Community and Voluntary Pillar (CVP). CVP encompasses a wide range of organisations, including the Conference of Religious of Ireland, the Congress Centres for the Unemployed, the Community Platform, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, the National Women's Council of Ireland, the National Youth Council of Ireland, Protestant Aid and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. All of these organisations are also involved in the current national agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) (IE0003149F), from which much of the NAP's policy content is drawn. There is thus considerable overlap.

The majority of organisations involved believe that: there has been an improvement in the consultative procedures and timescales, in comparison with previous NAPs; many of their views are incorporated in the NAP; and they had an important input in drafting and shaping the final text.

ICTU remarks that in previous years there was a very tight consultation timeframe, but that on this occasion consultation started much earlier, and the consultation process was 'genuine'. However, despite this improvement in the consultation process, ICTU feel that the consultation timescale is still quite tight, particularly as the NAPs have to be delivered annually. ICTU would also like to see more strategic targets being set.

ICTU states: 'A strength of the process from our viewpoint, is that it allows the social partners regularly to make their views known to the Commission on the evolution of the employment policy agenda within the Member State.'

Finally, ICTU remarks that: 'The reporting cycle of the NAP gives the government departments, agencies and social partners an opportunity to reflect on this evolving policy agenda. In the case of Ireland, this overlaps with the reporting mechanism of the PPF. In the event of a future national programme being concluded, consideration might be given to the alignment of the NAP and PPF reporting cycles. This would involve some changes, not least in the NAP which tends to be descriptive of past events, as opposed to the PPF reporting mechanism which tends to outline short to medium-term responses to policy issues.'

On the employers' side, IBEC is also more positive about the 2002 NAP consultative process than it was about previous NAPs. According to IBEC, the 2002 NAP is 'more developed and more strategic than before, however IBEC believes that it would be beneficial to strengthen the process in following years to allow greater discussion between relevant stakeholders, as opposed to submissions being made on an ad hoc basis, often based on portions of developed thought or text. IBEC understands that a review is underway of the way in which NAPs are developed and supports this review. Whilst an annual process does help to focus efforts and policies, it is not a long enough period to progress the issues involved, which often need a number of years before results are seen.'

In short, IBEC is broadly satisfied with the 2002 NAP process, but would like to see more strategic, and less frequent reports - every two or three years – instead of annual ones. IBEC also feels that the text/content of the NAP is perhaps too large.

Finally, the Community and Voluntary Pillar (CVP) welcomed the opportunity to make proposals on drafts of the 2002 NAP as it developed, and praised the commitment to make social inclusion an important part of the employment strategy. However, CVP suggests that 'the plans have largely been used to comment and report on strategies developed in other processes and fora. This may be partly due to the lack of 'fit' between the EU 'open method of coordination' and the Irish policy-making process, and if so it needs to be examined in the context of the current review of the strategy.'

Matters of policy content

The social partners in Ireland have been heavily involved in the NAP, in line with objective D of the 2002 Employment Guidelines (on a 'comprehensive partnership with the social partners for the implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the employment strategy'). The social partners are engaged in a comprehensive partnership, in the form of the current national partnership agreement, the PPF, which incorporates a wide range of employment-related policies – and also reflected in the 2002 NAP .

With regard to the social partners' assessment of the policy content of the NAP and the government's employment policy, ICTU is broadly happy with current employment policy as incorporated within the 2002 NAP, but identifies the two key areas of lifelong learning and women's labour market participation as the most significant challenges in the Irish context.

In relation to lifelong learning, ICTU states: 'The challenge for Ireland is to develop a culture of learning in the workplace. This is contained in the Taskforce report [the Taskforce on Lifelong Learning set up under the PPF], and will probably be one of the most significant challenges facing the education/training system and the social partners in the future.'

In terms of the target of increasing female labour force participation, ICTU points to the importance of childcare facilities. ICTU believes that not enough has been done to promote affordable, quality childcare provisions in Ireland (IE9902269F), which acts as a barrier to women remaining in or returning to the workforce: 'The action by government has been limited to the supply side and the availability of childcare places is moving too slowly.' According to ICTU, Ireland has amongst the highest childcare costs – 20% of average earnings - in the EU. The mean figure across the EU is said to be 8% of average earnings.

ICTU also emphasises the importance of policies for women returning to work following full-time childcare: 'Specific policies targeting women will be necessary. When women return to employment from a period of full-time childcare they often experience occupational downgrading, reduced earnings and fewer promotional opportunities.' ICTU believes that there should be more action to promote 'family-friendly' work practices (IE0009155F), which are complementary to an adequate childcare system. It has called for an element of paid parental leave in Ireland, as well as a statutory right to paternity leave for fathers.

Furthermore, ICTU is concerned about addressing the causes of gender discrimination/segregation across occupational sectors. It has called for the identification of specific targets to reduce gender segregation.

Overall, IBEC is also satisfied with the government's employment policy, suggesting that there is a good record of employment creation in Ireland and a very low level of unemployment. In addition, very good progress has been made in reducing the number of long-term unemployed people, IBEC feels. However, IBEC believes that there are still outstanding issues to be addressed, particularly childcare and training for people in employment.

IBEC suggests that lifelong learning has become an area of increasing importance. According to IBEC, 'strategically, the framework for lifelong learning that is currently working is very weak.' However, IBEC cites a number of advances in this area, such as the establishment of the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI) and the imminent report of the Taskforce on Lifelong Learning, which was set up under the PPF.

IBEC argues that the 'boundary between education and training is becoming increasingly blurred and its maintenance undermines overall coherence in human resource development policy'. It is important to recognise that a substantial amount of learning takes place outside the workplace, IBEC suggests. 'Upskilling' for those in employment must become a priority, IBEC claims, if higher value-added employment is to be attracted to Ireland. To this end, 'basic educational disadvantage in the workforce must be addressed, particularly in relation to literacy difficulties.'

IBEC also views the availability and affordability of childcare as a crucial issue. 'The affordability issue has not been comprehensively tackled. The increases in child benefit, whilst rightly justifiable in terms of tackling poverty, do nothing to facilitate participation in employment. If parents are to be helped in supporting the heavy costs that they are incurring, more deliberate, tailored and targeted tax/social welfare measures are needed. Consideration should also be given to the potential value of capitation-style grants in respect of all pre-school places as a means of addressing the affordability issue.'

In relation to immigration policy, IBEC believes that 'there is considerable room for improvement in immigration policy and implementation. The current approach is not sensitive to the important competitive contribution immigration can make to the economy, nor is it sensitive to the benefits of having a more diverse society.' IBEC calls for 'a single, streamlined immigration system with one single administrative procedure combining entry visa and a work/study permit applications and renewals, should be established'.

Finally, reflecting its opposition to over-regulation, which it fears may erode Irish competitiveness, IBEC argues that employment protection regulation should be 'the option of last resort and it is important that other alternatives are considered before embarking on such an approach'.

For its part, CVP believes that 'the weaknesses in successive NAPs reflect a general direction in policy and a public perception that the employment problems have been solved.' CVP suggests that the needs of the socially excluded cannot be met only by growth in overall employment levels. According to CVP, 'policies now need to be more clearly targeted to the needs of those most distant from the labour market and towards promoting equality and quality of work.'

CVP outlines some long-standing concerns about the government's employment strategy and the NAP: the general absence of 'pathway' approaches to facilitate those distanced from the labour market to reintegrate into employment; difficulty in monitoring the number of workplaces providing family-friendly work arrangements and childcare facilities; slow progress in developing the 'social economy' and tackling social exclusion; and poor targeting of disadvantaged groups and those suffering discrimination.

Bargaining

The 2002 Employment Guidelines promote collective bargaining in the areas of:

• improving the quality of work and employment (in general);

• modernising work organisation (guideline 13);

• lifelong learning in the context of competence and skill development in enterprises (guideline 15);

• 'active ageing' (guideline 3);

• strengthening equal opportunities for men and women (tackling the gender pay gap, desegregating the labour market, reconciling work and family/private life etc) (guidelines 16,17 and 18); and

• social integration by way of better access to the labour market for groups and individuals at risk or at a disadvantage, such as people from ethnic minorities, migrant workers, long-term unemployed people and people with disabilities (guideline 7).

There is no information available on recent bargaining in these areas related to the Employment Guidelines or NAP (within the framework of the PPF national agreement, Irish collective bargaining is largely decentralised). However, since November 2001 (when the 2002 Employment Guidelines were sent to the Member States), there have been a number of new employment-related initiatives/bargaining issues in Ireland. March 2002 saw the formal launch of the National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP) (IE0104166F), a new body which seeks to support and facilitate organisational change and the modernisation of work organisation based on partnership.

Another important development was the implementation of legislation covering the rights of part-time workers in December 2001 (IE0202202F). The Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001 implements the December 1997 EU Directive (97/81/EC) on part-time work. The government took longer than was stipulated to implement the Directive (it was due to have been transposed by January 2001). The new legislation prohibits any discrimination on the grounds of part-time employment status.

In addition, the Task Force on Lifelong Learning, established under the PPF, is due to issue a report very soon for government consideration. The purpose of the report will be to promote a comprehensive and coherent framework for providing education and training on a lifelong basis.

Commentary

The social partners in Ireland have, on the whole, responded positively to the 2002 NAP, which to a significant degree, overlaps with the policy content of the current national agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. However, there is something of a consensus among the social partners that there are a number of key priority areas that need to be addressed, particularly childcare, female labour market participation, and lifelong learning and training. (Tony Dobbins, IRN)