Paul Murphy: Criticises Bill for Leaving COVID Layoffs Unprotected

Thanks a lot, Keann Corley. I want to start with making some suggestions as to how the small but positive reforms contained in this bill could be improved before, if I have time, moving on to the wider issue of workers' rights. In total, what, we have 20 minutes, isn't that right? Yeah, thanks. The bill states that periods of time up to September 2021, when workers were laid off because of COVID emergency measures, will now be included in their reckonable length of service for the purpose of statutory redundancy payments. However, that covers precisely layoff periods up to September 2021. Anyone laid off because of COVID since the end of September 2021 would not have those layoff periods counted. That would penalise nightclub workers, pub workers laid off because of government-mandated closures or restricted opening hours between October 2021 and January 2022. The government may argue in response that normal redundancy rights were restored at the end of September 2021, meaning that employees facing layoffs after that date could have claimed redundancy as normal, whereas previously those rights were suspended. But this effectively means forcing anyone laid off because of COVID since September to choose between triggering redundancy and giving up on getting their job back, or being laid off for a period of time that won't be included in their reckonable service for redundancy purposes. That is obviously unfair and must be changed, and we will seek to amend. It is also an issue in terms that have been raised previously that the bill only applies to statutory redundancy, where workers who have negotiated better redundancy terms with their employers will not be automatically entitled to have layoff periods included in their reckonable service in that instance, and will have to struggle individually or collectively as groups of workers with a private employer to win it. I will also raise the question in relation to profitable companies who may be winding up or making a number of workers redundant for non-financial reasons should not have to cover those costs themselves rather than it falling to the state. There is already evidence of profitable companies super exploiting pandemic-related corporate welfare, for example, companies paying dividends while receiving the employment wage subsidy. The absence of any attempt to deter this, the light-touch approach taken in general to policing the billions in corporate welfare which were handed out during the pandemic, does stand in very stark contrast with the punitive approach taken towards those on the PUP. The PUP was the first COVID support to be cut long before anything for businesses, and it is not so long ago that workers claiming it faced having their payments stopped if they were intercepted by social welfare inspectors at the airport. The additional point I would make is the relatively small payout compared to the cost of living and the scale of redundancies that are coming. The current bill entitles workers covered to a maximum additional payout of €1,860. That is roughly the equivalent of one month's rent in Dublin and much less than the anticipated rise in the cost of basic necessities over the course of the next year. So it is welcome, but it is not going to go very far. It is also a drop in the ocean considering the tidal wave of involuntary redundancies coming our way once COVID payments to businesses are withdrawn. The EWSS is the end for many businesses from the 30th of April and for businesses affected by the last round of COVID restrictions, mainly in hospitality and arts and entertainment from the 30th of May. It is only then that we will begin to have a much clearer picture of the longer-term impact of COVID-19 on unemployment. The Tánaiste yesterday in the committee was trumpeting the 7.5% unemployment rate last December, but that may prove to be a little premature. The latest figures show 75,000 people still on the PUP, a further 279,000 on the EWSS. Yet the Tánaiste has previously estimated a maximum of 56,000 redundancies over the next three years, although the €150 million budget for the expansion of State payments under the bill suggests a higher number, perhaps in the region of 80,000, are anticipated in reality. However many workers end up losing their jobs, it must be a core priority that not one worker loses out on any of their redundancy entitlements, be that from the State or from their employer. It is unfortunate that the Tánaiste and the Government have not taken the obvious opportunity here, while reforming redundancy law anyway, to give workers what they really need and deserve. The right to receive every cent of what they are rightfully owed by employers, including additional redundancy payments, and be first in line when companies are liquidated. This was a core demand of the Debenhams workers. They stood on picket lines in all weathers for 406 days during a global pandemic. These heroic, mainly female workers were betrayed time and time again, not only by their employer, but standing behind them, the Government with some crocodile tears, and unfortunately they were failed by aspects of the trade union leadership. Like with the Cleary's workers before them, the Government sat on its hands, pretending they were useless for anything stronger than tea or sympathy or a few claps for frontline workers. What would a left Government that actually cared about workers' rights do in this situation? Firstly, it would immediately legislate to protect workers in collective redundancy situations by putting them at the top of the queue. That could be done by amending the Companies Act 2014 to provide for preferential creditor status to employees in collective redundancies and to include all payments due to workers in the list of payments covered. That is what we proposed in the private members' bill that we put forward all the way back last May. Fearing a public outcry at a time when public support for the Debenhams workers was widespread, the Government took the cynical decision not to openly oppose our Companies Protection of Employees Rights in Liquidations Bill 2021, otherwise known as the Debenhams Bill, but of course it has failed to do anything since to progress our bill or to do anything else to materially improve workers' rights in collective redundancy situations. It has a golden opportunity to do so now when it is amending the law on redundancies for other reasons, but it has chosen not to do so. Again, we will be submitting amendments in line with the Debenhams Bill. The second and even more important thing that a left Government with an eco-socialist programme would do is to carry out a radical overhaul of workers' rights in this country. The 1990 Industrial Relations Act must be repealed and replaced with a charter of workers' rights. That would include the right to establish pickets, workplace occupations, the right to engage in political and sympathy strikes, and the right to mandatory trade union recognition as proposed in the People Before Profits Trade Union Recognition Bill. Without these rights, the workers' movement is fighting with one hand tied behind its back, which of course is the whole point of the 1990 Act. In most other European countries, workers are not legally prohibited from striking in support of another group of workers. But in Ireland, the Government has banned both political and sympathy strikes. This is despite our proud history of the world-famous Dunn's anti-apartheid strike. Nearly 40 years on, parties on all sides of this House would profess to believe that the strikers were on the side of right. Yet such a strike could not legally take place today against Israel, for example, despite it recently being declared an apartheid state by human rights organisations from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch. The right to mandatory trade union recognition as proposed in the People Before Profits Trade Union Recognition Bill and commonplace in most other European countries is also a fundamental workers' right. Without it, many workers' rights on paper are rendered essentially meaningless. In this situation, it is hardly surprising that union membership has fallen from 33 per cent in 2005 to 24 per cent in 2018. Collective bargaining coverage is also only about 33 per cent, the seventh lowest of 22 EU countries. We also need to tackle the massive increase in precarious work, gig work and bogus self-employment. Again, the Government has sat on its hands while precarious employment amongst young people has reached unprecedented levels. Research by the National Youth Council of Ireland found that 38 per cent of people aged between 18 and 29 are on temporary contracts. A staggering 82 per cent said precarious work was the only work available. Over 70 per cent said their current temporary or part-time contract was causing them serious hardship. Part-time and temporary workers are also more likely to be low paid. Half of precarious workers under 30 earn less than the living wage. On top of this, young workers aged under 20 are discriminated against through only being legally entitled to lower minimum wage rates. This dull term will be introducing the National Minimum Wage Equal Pay for Young Workers Bill, which abolishes discriminatory lower minimum wage rates for young workers, including apprentices. To fight for workers' rights, to fight for higher pay in a time for soaring inflation, to fight for decent redundancies, ultimately we need to build an active rank-and-file base in the trade unions and reinvigorate them as democratic fighting organisations north and south. It is only through an active, fighting trade union movement that we can restore public sector pay, reverse cuts, fight for equal and better paying conditions for all workers, regardless of gender, race, disability or immigration status, and decent redundancy. I leave it there for Deputy Boyd Barath. Deputy Boyd Barath. Deputy Boyd Barath.