George Lawlor: Seeks Labour Court Backstop to Save JLCs

It is a privilege to be able to bring this vital bill before the House for its second stage. We have a chance today to make clear our commitment to standing up for the most fundamental of rights, the right to bargain collectively for better conditions, better pay and for a fairer workplace. This is also an opportunity to protect a long-standing, successful institution by righting a wrong. Joint Labour Committees and their precursors have been an important pillar of collective bargaining in this country for over a century, but due to legal proceedings a decade ago, their very viability stands at risk. An employer's veto over the operation of JLCs undermines their purpose, but that is what we are left with following that legal case. This bill would provide a fix and in doing so would protect this important part of our industrial relations framework for the future. By enacting a simple backstop, allowing the Labour Courts to step in where there is a refusal to engage with a Joint Labour Committee, we can not only protect the rights of every worker to collective bargaining, but can ensure that the expressed will of the Oireachtas can no longer be subverted. As we debate this bill today, it is important we are cognizant of the wider landscape of collective bargaining in Ireland in 2025. Sadly, Ireland's voluntary system marks us as outliers in the industrialised Western world. The weak legal protections we provide to workers with regard to collective bargaining allows employers to simply refuse to engage with trade unions or workers. Of course, that is not just bad for those workers, it is bad for our whole society. The economic, social and environmental benefits of collective bargaining have long been clear. When employers deny employees the chance to bargain collectively, they are not just denying the rights of those workers in particular, they are actively holding our economy back and suppressing wages across whole sectors. Ireland has a particular low rate of collective bargaining coverage. Just 34 per cent of our workers currently benefit from collective bargaining arrangements, compared to an EU average of 56 per cent. We know that the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages calls on Member States with low coverage to lay out their path to 80 per cent, and we know the Government is soon to unveil an action plan to that effect. When that action plan comes, it must be ambitious, it must be clear, and it must do what it says on the tin. It must contain real, measurable actions. The Bill before us today represents one simple action we must take, by ensuring that joint Labour committees can once again function as they were always intended to. We can take a big step towards ending the race to the bottom that we see far too often in far too many industries. Well over 100 years ago, it was the Government in London who recognised that across Britain and Ireland, there were too many workers in industries that were subject to chronically low pay and poor conditions. Those industries typically had very poor or indeed non-existent trade union representation. That reality led to the genesis of the trade board system, aiming at guaranteeing minimum standards and conditions across those industries, by providing a form of collective bargaining to the workers in those under-unionised sectors. These trade boards would take the form of bargaining bodies, including representatives of both employers and workers, and would be empowered to set binding minimum wages and conditions across a particular sector. That system proved to be durable, and it was further refined with the Industrial Relations Act 1946. That act saw the trade boards become joint Labour committees. Their members would be appointed by the Labour Court after the Minister had established that a particular sector had inadequate machinery to effectively regulate pay and conditions. It was an effective way to make sure that workers in sectors with low levels of representation benefited from collective bargaining and were able to negotiate for better wages and conditions. But it relied on certain assumptions. Whether it was the somewhat unlikely figure of Winston Churchill in 1909, or Sean Lemass in 1946, the originators of the law that underpinned the first trade boards, and then the JLCs clearly understood that these were bodies aimed at providing the opportunity for bargaining in the sectors with the lowest levels of representation and with some of the worst conditions. They clearly understood these as operating across an industry or sectors, and with the involvement of both employers and workers. What they clearly did not have in mind was an employer's veto. How could this system ever have gotten off the ground if it would all collapse where the employers refused to tug out? But that is unfortunately what we have been left with after the legal proceedings brought a decade ago by the Irish Hotels Federation, when the then Minister aimed to reconstitute a JLC in the hotel sector. In preparing to oppose the Irish Hotels Federation case, the State effectively conceded that in the absence of employers' representation, the JLC could not be constituted, and furthermore that the decision to take part in negotiations under a JLC framework were voluntary. The legal proceedings were struck out, and the case ended before it reached the court. But those legal proceedings cast a long shadow, and we are now left in a situation far removed from what the original drafters of the Trade Board or JLC system envisioned. We are left with an employer's veto, and with that the reality that powerful employers can simply sidestep and ignore what should be a crucial pillar of our industrial relations infrastructure, a crucial tool for underpaid, underrepresented workers to get a place around the table to negotiate for a better deal. And we are all the worse off for it. In some sectors like security and childcare, JLCs have continued to work well. We have seen their results in legally binding employment regulation orders, setting fair floors for wages and working conditions. They have helped to root out rogue operators, and to stop unfair competition based on low pay, where a bad employer is undercut by a worse one. But the hotel sector is a case in point. In this and other sectors, employers are actively boycotting the JLC process, undermining this keystone of our industrial relations system, and depriving their employees of their rights to collective bargaining. The Irish Hotels Federation's years-long boycott has left workers in the hotel sector without a voice at the table. That is a travesty for those workers, and it is bad for the sector's good employers, who want to play a fair game. Boycotts like that just leave us with a race to the bottom. That is why I believe this bill is so vital. The bill would enact new provisions on the constitution of JLCs. These will apply in a case where the Labour Court seeks to consult an organisation of employers or workers, but is met with a refusal to engage on the appointment of members to a JLC. When facing such an impasse, the Court will then be able to appoint the people it views as representative of the interests of the relevant employers or workers. The key purpose here is to emphasise that while the members appointed will be representative of the interests of the employer or worker's side, they need not necessarily be their representatives. That crucial distinction would make clear that there can be no veto on either the employer's or worker's side. The Court will review the membership of the Committee from time to time to ensure it continues to be representative. If the Court is satisfied that it is not possible to appoint such representatives to a JLC, and that the employers or workers concerned are operating in a way aimed at ensuring effective regulation of pay and conditions cannot take place, the bill would allow the Court to make its own proposals for an employment regulation order. Those proposals would need to take into account the legitimate financial and commercial interests of the employers in the sector, the desirability of fair and sustainable minimum rates of pay appropriate to the sector and the general level of wages in comparable sectors. When the Court has finished those proposals, it would then forward them to the Minister, who would deal with them just as though they were the proposals of a JLC. Thus, the unfortunate loophole which has emerged since the Irish Hotel Federation legal proceedings would be closed. Under this bill, employers will no longer be able to veto the establishment of a JLC simply by refusing to play ball. Of course, we would all hope that the backstop powers given to the Court by this bill could be used sparingly, and employers would engage with the JLC process in the correct spirit. But we must be clear that where they fail to do so, we will step in to ensure that the workers in those underrepresented, often underpaid sectors that need JLCs the most get their shot at a fair deal. Without this bill, JLCs will be forever hamstrung. We will lose a crucial pillar of our industrial relations framework, and we will fall yet further behind our neighbours on workers' rights. In October 2022, the High Level Group on Collective Bargaining, which included IBEC and ICTU, published their final report. They made it clear that the robustness and effectiveness of this statutory mechanism have been impacted by employer disengagement in relation to the operation of the JLC system in a number of sectors. The time has never been more urgent to stand up for collective bargaining. The Government has diddered and delayed too long. We cannot sit on our hands any longer, while too many workers are left voiceless in the face of low pay and poor conditions. The Government have promised an action plan, as they are required to deliver under the terms of the EU's directive. That is much welcome. But today, they have the opportunity to take real, decisive action now by backing this bill. I will come clean and say it. There is nothing radical in this bill. We are not asking for any major overhaul of the industrial relations system here. All we are asking for is a simple, common sense step that will make a real difference. It is a step that will restore the Oireachtas' original attempt from when joint labour committees were first legislated for back in 1946. It is a step that will give so many workers across the country the seat at the table they deserve. It is a step that will be to the benefit of us all. I urge colleagues across the House to stand up for collective bargaining and stand up for workers across the country by supporting this bill today. Go to Milenbach good. Go to Milenbach good.