I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The general election campaign for Fine Gael got off to a very bad start because a video emerged of Michael O'Leary launching the election campaign of Deputy Peter Burke, now the Minister responsible for this area, including, unfortunately, workers' rights, saying the things Fine Gael and its supporters say to each other when they think videos are not on and these things are not going to be public. Michael O'Leary endorsed a Government led by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and said: "Let's put two parties back in government that can deliver". He also said: "We need a government that delivers for enterprise ... it’s vital that we elect a government that gets shit done ... I can think of nobody here, certainly in the current government, who demonstrates more action, more energy ... than Peter Burke." Michael O'Leary, of course, is a notoriously anti-worker and anti-trade union employer. The investment and support of Michael O'Leary has paid off. So far, in just over 100 days of this Government, anti-worker measure after anti-worker measure has been pursued. Previous commitments have been dropped, such as the extension of sick leave, which we were promised at the time. We wanted to stitch the increase in sick leave into the legislation but the Government argued there was no need and that we should not worry because it would do it. It is now being delayed, with Fine Gael proudly trumpeting to business that it is delaying it. There is also the delay of the promised living wage. Just saying that people on the minimum wage should have the very basics of what they need to survive is no longer a commitment by the Government. That was kicked out. The Government has also kicked out something this Dáil voted for, namely, to end the outrageous situation of so-called sub-minimum wages and super-exploitation of young people who are legally paid even less than the minimum wage. We have a Government that is consciously working against the interests of workers and for the interests of big corporations and the likes of Michael O'Leary. This is the situation in a country where we have immense wealth. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet we have the highest rate of low pay in the European Union. One in five workers is low paid, representing more than 420,000 workers. On top of that, one in ten workers experience bullying or harassment, there are conditions of precarity and employees here work longer hours and have fewer holidays and less protection against dismissal than their European counterparts. That is rife and part of the so-called voluntaristic model of industrial relations the Government trumpets, which tries to make it difficult for trade unions to organise workers and for workers to get organised. I will provide an example. The people operating cameras for the Oireachtas right now are an example of the kind of conditions of precarity. These are workers doing a job. They should be directly employed by the Oireachtas but they are not. They are outsourced. When there were no Dáil sittings for an extended period when the election was called and then when Government negations were going on, they were not paid at all. The rates they are paid are about half of the normal freelance rates for camera operators and the other work they are doing. It is scandalous but shows this is rife in terms of bad working conditions for workers. Those same workers are faced with grocery and energy prices that are still sky high and rents rising at a rate of approximately 10% a year. The best way for workers to deal with all of these challenges is to get organised into trade unions and to fight for better terms and conditions. Even with the terrible legal regime in this country and the horrific elements of the Industrial Relations Act 1990, all the evidence shows that if you get organised in a trade union, you will be able to combat bullying and discrimination, improve the atmosphere and safety in your workplace, and increase your wages. All the evidence shows that being in a union gives a premium of at least 10% in wages and a series of other benefits. The benefits of high levels of unionisation go outside of the workplace. The evidence shows that where there are higher levels of unionisation, there are lower levels of inequality, including wage inequality, across the economy. With higher levels of unionisation, a greater share of the value created by workers goes to the workers themselves as opposed to going to profit. A key reason the balance has shifted with more and more of the wealth created going to corporations is this attack on trade unions, which was heralded by Thatcherism, Reaganism and so on. The consequence is that while workers in the 1970s were getting 55% of the value that was being created, that has been driven down to 40%. Even under the current regime, workers should join trade unions and transform them into being fighting, democratic organs. We should be clear that we have a Government that is working against workers getting organised in trade unions. I got an answer to a question to the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, recently. I asked if he was aware that large employers in receipt of Government contracts, Abtran and RelateCare, which are anti-union employers, with Abtran refusing to engage with the industrial relations machinery, are refusing to recognise trade unions or engage in collective bargaining, and what the Minister of State is going to do about it. The answer I got is the answer that I presume we will get in the speech from the Minister in 13 minutes' time. It stated that we have a "voluntary system of industrial relations that is premised upon freedom of contract and freedom of association. ... The Government fully supports the right of any worker to join and be active in their trade union. Employees have the right under the Constitution to form associations and trade unions" and an employee cannot be discriminated against. It continued, "Under Irish law, there is no requirement for an employer to recognise trade unions for the purpose of collective bargaining." The Government says that workers have the right to join trade unions but employers have the right not to deal with those trade unions. It is all premised on this illusionary equality between employees and employers, whereas bosses have the cards here. If you do not work, you cannot provide for your family. It is why we have a situation whereby workers have historically combined and have won minimum wages, have the won the weekend, have won 40-hour weeks and so on. It is why workers need to combine and act collectively, but the Government says to employers not to worry, that they can simply ignore the workers and do not need to engage with them. That is the purpose of this Bill. It introduces mandatory trade union recognition, so that when 20% of a given set of workers join a trade union, the employer is legally mandated to engage with that union through the industrial relations process. That is what it is about. It is very simple. It is about a basic element of democracy in the workplace. It is a measure that is supported, in a recent Ireland Thinks opinion poll, by 70% of people in this country. An example of a situation it deals with involves the second biggest company in the world, Amazon, owned by the second richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, a notoriously anti-union individual and employer. The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, is also a notoriously anti-union individual and employer. There is a pattern. We know that Amazon is expanding in Ireland. It now has 6,500 workers. That will increase even further. We know it is renowned for poor working conditions. It denied and then was forced to retract the denial of workers in America being forced to pee in bottles because they are not provided with appropriate breaks, toilet facilities and so on. Huge wealth is being made off the backs of exploited workers in poor conditions. All those workers in Ireland could join a trade union and Amazon could say it is not dealing with them. This is a company that spends about $10,000 a day on fighting unions and trying to keep unions out of its shops. It spent over €10 million in 2022 and 2023 on trying to defeat unionisation. We need to match the effort of those workers in Amazon in this country, fighting to build unions and get organised, with a legislative framework that gives them the right to be in that union and compels the employer to deal with them.

Sentiment score: 0.08

I thank all colleagues in all the Opposition parties who supported our Bill. I just point out that we will finish ten minutes early. The reason is that the Members of the Lowry group who fought so hard to get their time to speak on these matters presumably do not consider it important to come and speak about trade union rights or maybe they are embarrassed because they will be voting against trade union rights later on today. I agree with one thing the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, said in her response, namely, that the "approach set out in this Bill would undermine the voluntarist approach to industrial relations that has existed down through the decades". That is correct and is precisely the point of the Bill, because the voluntarist system of industrial relations that has existed through decades is one that has worked in the interests of employers, not in the interests of workers. The Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, in the opening statement set out what he said were compelling reasons for the Government's opposition to this Bill. Effectively two were mentioned. First was the suggestion we often get in this place that it is unconstitutional and second was the reference to how great the voluntarist system is. In response to the suggestion that it is unconstitutional, Deputies Lawlor and Gibney addressed this point very well. This is a paper tiger that the Government hides behind to avoid acting. There is no basis or relevant rulings to suggest it will be unconstitutional. Compelling cases were made by Deputies Lawlor and Gibney. I want to add to that something the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, said at the end when she spoke about rights that are "guaranteed in a number of international instruments the State has ratified and which it is, therefore, bound to uphold under international law." I draw attention to the European Convention on Human Rights and a decision in Demir and Baykara v. Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights which has enormous relevance here. Up until that case, the European Court of Human Rights had effectively held that the right of workers to bargain collectively did not constitute an inherent element of freedom of association. The European Court of Human Rights had a similar position to the Government, which is that workers have the constitutional right or the right protected under the European Convention to join a trade union but that does not imply that the employer is compelled to negotiate with workers collectively. However, that court decision changed things. I am quoting here from a very important pamphlet from Daryl D'Art. A human right, the court held, must be interpreted "in a manner that renders the right practical and effective not theoretical and illusory". Consequently the court concluded "the right to bargain collectively with the employer had become an essential element of freedom of association." A year later, Demir was cited in another unanimous decision of the European Court of Human Rights upholding the right to union recognition and collective bargaining as integral to freedom of association. The way the Government is suggesting the right to freedom of association is protected is now effectively being characterised by the European Court of Human Rights as theoretical and illusory, lacking in legal validity. There is already legislation which compels duties of consultation and recognition on employers - the Universities Act 1997, the Education Act 1998, the Institutes of Technology Act 2006 and the Railways Acts 1924 and 1933 - which have not been challenged on their constitutionality. It is not true that this would be unconstitutional. On the idea that the long-standing voluntarist system has served us well over the decades, it was quite revealing that the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, stated the following: "A strong and well-functioning collective bargaining system [which we do not have, by the way] supports productivity and fair wages, especially in low-paid sectors". The voluntarist model, whereby employers are able to accept that workers - all workers - have joined the union but the employer does not have to deal with them, works for employers in low-paid sectors. It is part of the reason we have, relative to other European countries, the highest incidence of low pay. It is why we have such high rates of precarity. It is why we have fewer rights than workers in other European countries. That is facilitated by the Government's anti-union practice which is clouded in the language of voluntarism. The Government's language on the adequate minimum wages directive is interesting. It has now said that there is no obligation on member states to reach any prescribed level of collective bargaining coverage within any defined timeframe. The Government has signed up to a directive requiring it to prepare an action plan to increase collective bargaining coverage to 80% - by the way the best way to do that is clearly by increasing union density and union membership - but then the Government says, "Don't worry; we don't actually have to reach that by any defined timeframe". This means it is signing up to it in the knowledge that we never actually have to do anything about it. It is quite revealing in that it reveals why the Government continues to drag its feet on it.

Sentiment score: 0.21