Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 5 Mar 2021
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Transcript
Go raibh agat. Leader, I rise this morning to ask, does industrial relations mean anything in this country? Have we any respect for the processes we put in place? The Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court have been used to settle industrial disputes or to provide dispute resolution, yet particularly state-run organisations decide to ignore them totally. I am aware of, I have taken cases myself as the leader of a trade union and had a favourable adjudication at WRC, a favourable adjudication at the Labour Court and had to go to the courts to have it implemented. This is just outrageous waste of government money. Right now there are adjudications sitting on the desk of the public expenditure and reform in the favour of the Garda superintendents, in favour of community employment schemes, team workers, going back two or three years, going back two or three years and still haven't been implemented. Then we get an announcement that the pay negotiations have been finalised and that we're now waiting for the army and the Garda to vote on pay negotiations. They weren't included in the negotiations. Their pay was negotiated by a teacher, a nurse and two trade unionists. They had nowhere at the table. They had nowhere at the table. They were given a note at the end of the negotiation and told, here's the deal, now go and ask your members to vote for it. Have we any respect for proper industrial relations in this country? And if we have, how are we going to implement them? A recommendation from the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court should be implemented. We should not find people having to beg for the implementation. Who are the gatekeepers here? Is it the political system or is it the permanent government? Whoever is the gatekeeper needs to stop and start recognising the rights of workers in this country. We're quick enough to run them into the Labour Court or the WRC for a resolution. So I'd ask for maybe a discussion on that in the near future, Leader. Thank you. Thank you.