Trade union president hits out against erosion in employment standards

In a major policy speech at the end of March 2007, the general president of Ireland’s largest trade union has warned of ‘consequences for those who drive a tyrannical agenda in the workplace’, but has promised to ‘cultivate a more positive strategy towards employers who recognise unions and are prepared to maintain reasonable standards of employment’. He emphasised that the unions had always tried to deal with the denial of union representation and collective bargaining diplomatically through social partnership.

In his speech on 30 March 2007, the President of the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Trade Union (SIPTU), Jack O’Connor, signalled, for the first time, an acknowledgement that foreign non-union companies with sophisticated human resource (HR) best practice policies would not be targets for union recognition. Mr O’Connor wanted to ‘make it clear that there are some employers with whom we have no relationship who provide good quality employment and treat their staff with dignity and respect’.

While the trade unions would prefer that these companies would allow employees the right to participate in collective bargaining, ‘these are not the people who are destroying employment standards.’ This was a historic acknowledgment by a senior trade union figure that good terms and conditions of employment may apply in many such non-union organisations.

Moving on to address companies that do recognise trade unions, the SIPTU president said that ‘without compromising on fundamental principles or letting working peoples’ interests down’, the unions would have to cultivate a more positive strategy towards those employers who are prepared to maintain reasonable employment standards, properly fund occupational pension schemes and invest in training. Mr O’Connor emphasised that ‘we certainly have to treat them better than those who refuse to recognise unions and flagrantly abuse employees.’

Furthermore, Mr O’Connor highlighted that the trade union movement also had to ‘intensify [its] efforts to address the key issues of productivity and change. This is not about compromising on basic principles. It is about creating better workplaces for everyone.’ The unions should start ‘constructing platforms with employers who recognise unions and maintain employment standards and finding ways to demonstrate that respect for workers is ultimately superior to the approach of the tyrant’.

Employment standards being undermined

The SIPTU president claimed that employment standards in many areas of the economy are being undermined through the ‘re-casualisation of labour by way of outsourcing of jobs to employment agencies and through bogus self-employment schemes’. He referred to a ‘growing proliferation of rogue agents that see their niche in our economy as the supplier of cheap and easily expendable labour’. This process is facilitated by an inexhaustible supply of vulnerable migrant workers, who are ‘particularly exposed to exploitation by crooked employment agencies that operate on the fringes of the law’, he claimed.

According to Mr O’Connor, the trade unions have reached ‘a major impasse’ in their engagement with the government and the employers on the issue of employment agencies; this deadlock is ‘similar to the one [the unions] experienced when securing legislative reforms to vindicate the rights and employment standards of part-time and fixed-term contract workers’. The SIPTU president argues that Ireland needs a proper licensing system for employment agencies and a robust system of compliance.

However, while Mr O’Connor has, in the past, been critical of the government’s ‘lethargy’ in delivering on the commitments in terms of employment standards contained in the social partnership agreement [Towards 2016 (2.9Mb PDF)](http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/Pdf files/Towards2016PartnershipAgreement.pdf), he stated that ‘there is evidence that progress has been made’. These measures include a new enforcement regime and more labour inspectors to ensure that existing labour standards are adhered to.

Collective bargaining rights for all workers

Moving on to collective bargaining rights, Mr O’Connor highlighted that the unions ‘have to confront that element among the employers that denies workers the right to organise and participate in collective bargaining and that abuses the absolute power they enjoy in this equation to drive standards of employment through the floor.’ He emphasised that there had to be ‘consequences’ for those who ‘drive a tyrannical agenda’ in the workplace, and that ‘there can be no equivocation on this. It is way past wake-up time for all of us.’

The SIPTU president stated that the unions had tried to deal with the denial of union representation and collective bargaining diplomatically through social partnership, referring thus to the Industrial Relations Acts 2001–2004; the latter allow unionised workers who have been refused recognition for collective bargaining purposes to be represented by a trade union in the Labour Court.

‘However, in its recent judgment on the Ryanair case, the Supreme Court effectively annulled the 2004 legislation. The effect of the judgment is to shift the balance dramatically back in favour of tyrannical employers to the detriment of vulnerable workers.’

In February 2007, the Supreme Court issued a crucial ruling in a case involving Ryanair, the Labour Court and the Irish Municipal Public and Civil Trade Union (IMPACT) under the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act, 2001 and the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2004. It found that the Labour Court had failed to follow fair procedures in determining that it had jurisdiction to decide on a range of industrial relations issues referred to it by the union (IE0702019I).

Brian Sheehan, IRN Publishing