The Government has published the report of the High-Level Group on Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations.
The Group was established last year by the Labour Employer Economic Forum (LEEF) in advance of a new EU directive requiring each member state to take action to widely expand (up to 80%) the percentage of their workers covered by collective bargaining on wage setting. Collective bargaining coverage in Ireland is currently around 34%.The Group comprised of representatives from ICTU, IBEC and Professor Bill Roche, UCD. It was chaired by Professor Michael Doherty, NUI Maynooth.
The Group’s recommendations will form the basis for the transposition of the directive to comply with EU law, including:
- A recommendation that existing legislation relating to Joint Labour Committees be strengthened to enable an Employment Regulation Order to be implemented on foot of employers being afforded all reasonable opportunities to engage.
- A recommendation that technical assessors be appointed by the Labour Court to advise the Court in pay comparison claims with the purpose of improving on current mechanisms.
- A recommendation that legislation requires an employer to engage with a trade union that seeks good faith engagement where they represent at least 10% of workers in a grade group or category within the employment.
- Where an employer refuses such an engagement and ignores the Labour Court decisions on the matter, the trade union can seek a Circuit Court order for implementation against the employer.
When implemented, these recommendations will, through increased collective bargaining coverage, provide new opportunities to achieve decent working and living standards for hundreds of thousands of workers through negotiated and collectively agreed on sector-wide Employment Regulation Orders.
General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Patricia King, said:
The Executive Council of the ICTU endorses the Group’s recommendations and believes them to be crucial to aligning our industrial relations procedures with our EU peers and for delivering improved outcomes for workers and employers as well as for society and the economy as a whole.
The report of the LEEF High Level Group on Collective Bargaining can be viewed here.
