Help me, peoples: collective bargaining rights February 8, 2011
Posted by Tomboktu in Economics, Labour relations, Trade Unions, Workers Rights.trackback
Somewhere recently I (think that I) read or heard that the Labour Party will make a law change to guarantee the right to collective bargaining or to union recognition part of any agreement they make for going into government. I cannot find anything on their website on this topic that is related to the current election campaign. (There is a speech Michael D Higgins made in December 2007 when they introduced a Private Members Bill to give effect to this, but that is well outside the scope of this general election.)
Does anybody here know if this is a policy they are due to announce during the campaign, or was it merely wishful thinking on my part?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
No idea what the Labour Party plans to do, but I noticed a call to further erode union rights in the UK from the Institute of Directors.
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Northern Ireland, Cedar Lounge Revol. Cedar Lounge Revol said: Help me, peoples: collective bargaining rights: Somewhere recently I (think that I) read or heard that the Labou… http://bit.ly/hPPjAh […]
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At its monthly meeting in January the SIPTU National Executive Council called on members to SIPTU magazine Liberty carries the following as regards voting ……
Support the Labour Party and those parties and candidates that support the principles of social solidarity. The commitment by Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore to legislate for the right of all workers to collective bargaining if involved in the next government and the importance for working people of a strong left wing component in any future Coalition strongly influenced the recommendation.
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Still nothing there about collective bargaining. Frankly the idea of Labour doing this is laughable in light of the fact that Gilmore now wants to extend the three year pay freeze to the private sector: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/elections/labour-to-seek-pay-freeze-in-private-sector-2525239.html
SIPTU calling on their workers to vote for Labour is like advising them to tip the hangman.
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Good God.
The Irish government – whoever gets in – HAS to legislate for some level of recognition of collective bargaining
This is because the EU charter of fundamental rights states that workers have a right to strike in cases of conflict- and under Irish law, only those organisations with a trade union negotiating licence can call a strike.
So, while the EU charter of fundamental rights does not state that there is a right to collective bargaining, it does state that there is a right to strike in cases of conflict.
As only those with trade union negotiating licences have this right in Irish law, the Irish government has to accommodate the EU right to strike in cases of conflict in relation to Irish law.
So. Gilmore’s ‘pledge’ is nothing but a scam, really.
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Thanks Tom — it appears the itch in my head that said I’d read or heard it was not Labour but SIPTU.
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Have you seen this yet ? Phil Hogan explains FG position on the TV3 debate controversy.
http://www.youtube.com/user/FineGaelMedia#p/u/6/8G_Nkxs8i3U
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Within his first year of becoming Labour party leader, Eamon Gilmore gave a commitment on a number of occasions to introduce the right to collective bargaining, most notaly at an ICTU bi-annual conference. In the Dail, he gave a commitment to both collective bargaining and the right to information and consultation in the workplace (http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/1245846216290146.html).
However, it could well be the case that these issues won’t get much of an airing in the debate. Unfortunately, there is too little appreciation of the role that labour rights can play in economic recovery. Right to collective bargaining, greater access to information, participatory work structures, more resources for the NERA, a low pay strategy (i.e. flat-rate pay increases) – all these can help boost enterprise performance, productivity (both private and public), increase growth through higher demand, benefit ‘high-road’ employers and reduce the Exhcequer deficit.
But this runs against the grain of the debate. Indeed, there are forces that believe that trouncing labour rights and working conditions is the way to propsperity. And those forces look set to control the future agenda.
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As far as a commitment to collective bargaining, in fairness Michael, so did Fine Gael.
http://www.unitetheunion.org/regions/ireland/news_from_ireland/unite_welcomes_fine_gael_commi.aspx
It may be that Labour’s pre-election proposals go further than Fine Gael’s but both are being driven by the same event: the EU charter of fundamental rights.
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And, of course, collective bargaining rights being part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights means that it form part of our domestic law already, albeit in a limited way.
Thus, FG are not doing this because they have developed some sort of nascent class consciousness but because they know that they may leave the State open to litigation if they fail to implement this correctly.
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yes. They can scrap the legislation requiring all strikes to be issued by registered trade unions – happy days for wildcat actions – or… try to get a grip on it by nailing down its parameters.
So really, Eamon Gilmore and SIPTU are calling on workers to vote Labour on the back of what is already there. The pots and pans of the legislation may not be in place on the Irish statute books, but the EU requirements are in place.
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“And, of course, collective bargaining rights being part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights means that it form part of our domestic law already, albeit in a limited way.”
I would disagree, or maybe concede on a technicality but argue that the “limited way” you refers to is so limited as to strip the first part of the sentence of any real effect.
The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is a high-level statement that it has little practical effect domestically unless its provisions are written into Irish domestic law. I would be surprised if the contents of the Charter were found to specific enough to enable the European Court of Justice to give them “direct effect” in the way they can (and do) with Directives that have not been transposed.
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But this runs against the grain of the debate. Indeed, there are forces that believe that trouncing labour rights and working conditions is the way to propsperity. And those forces look set to control the future agenda.
I noted IBEC’s begging bowl yesterday with some amusement. If they thought there was private sector profit in investing they’d already be doing it – so their demands were, essentially, for the Irish government to increase the corporate welfare system in this country (not least through the odious and discredited PPPs).
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Sometimes the Right in Ireland seems even more disparate than the left, but one thing that runs through all Irish right-wing politics and commentary is an almost visceral hatred of trades unionism. It’s at its least logical and most naked in the attempts to paint social partnership as the real cause of the slump and therefore public servants ( well, who else is in a union?) as among the beneficiaries of the boom. It’s an important factor in the huge amount of adulation accorded to the likes of Michael O’Leary, John McGuinness or Ed Walsh.
The demise of the Sunday Tribune is instructive in this regard. On the one hand, we hear Seamus Dooley of the NUJ rightly criticising the shameful way in which the paper’s staff have been treated: surely a strong argument for unions and organised labour in general? But, on the other hand, there’s an emotional argument that explains a lot of media anti-union ranting: ‘In the media, we can lose our jobs at an hour’s notice, so let’s take out our frustration, not on the corporations who make these stroke-of-the-pen decisions, but on an identifiable group of workers that does have security and strong unions – i.e. public servants’.
And there’s very little counter-argument, because most ordinary members of unions are so pissed off with their own leadership that they wouldn’t defend them.
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