Congress calls on Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs to protect workers from greedy employers
20 Jul 2010
Embargoed until 3pm
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs today that the employment standards contained in the EU Working Time Directive are being undermined in many Irish workplaces. Congress is the representative body for workers on the island of Ireland representing over 800,000 workers. The ICTU is an affiliate of the European
"From the perspective of Congress the main goal of the Directive is, and must remain, the protection of workers against the health and safety risks of long and irregular working hours", the Legal and Social Affairs Officer of ICTU, Esther Lynch said. "Our key message is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is now legally binding and it requires a limitation of working hours it also requires that workers and their unions are given the tools to negotiate better working times and schedules."
She warned that some employers were "responding to the recession by putting pressure on their employees to work longer hours for their week's wage. This is particularly the case where salaries are based on commission. Instead of the employer resetting sales targets to more realistic and achievable levels, workers are being pressurised to work longer hours, many of which are not recorded as they are considered to be employees 'who control their own hours'.
"Excessive and unpaid hours are not limited to the private sector; it is also a feature of some parts of the public sector in particular the health sector. The economic crisis is giving a particular edge to the debate on working time, with unemployment on the increase the logical thing to do is to promote solutions which keep as many workers as possible in employment, rather than putting pressure on some workers to work longer hours."
Congress was also concerned at the growth of "excessively flexible, unpredictable and precarious working time arrangements, where employees do not know from one week to the next what hours they will be working. This is part of a casualisation of employment by employers, especially large profitable retailers, through the endless subdivision of jobs into hourly paid units which fail to afford workers the opportunity to earn a decent living wage.
"Employers not only demand excessive flexibility from their workforce they also treat unsocial working hours (shift work, night and weekend work) as if it was nine to five they want to pay the same flat rate no matter what day or what time the person is working at. All of which can lead to increased stress and illnesses, directly related to lack of control over one's work and life because the worker is trying to earn a living wage . These must be addressed in any review of the Working Time legislation. "
Access to full-time employment with some control over working time patterns and limits "should be a legislative entitlement for employees", she said. Congress was seeking seeking legislation placing a legal duty on employers to:
(i) Provide reasonable notice of changes in working arrangements
(ii) Seriously consider requests for an alteration of working time from employees; and
(iii) Restrict circumstances in which employers can refuse such requests to specified limited objective reasons
(iv) Oblige employers to provide timely information on the availability of part-time and full-time positions in the establishment in order to facilitate transfers from full-time to part-time work, or vice versa.
Ms Lynch said unions were also concerned that EU rules and the decisions of the European Court of Justice were being ignored where the outcome was favorable to workers. "It is worth pointing out here that with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty the Charter of Fundamental Rights has become legally binding. Article 31 of the Charter provides that 'every worker has the right to working conditions that respect his or her health, safety and dignity'... 'that every worker has the right to limitation of maximum working hours, to daily and weekly rest and to an annual period of paid leave'. The 'individual opt out' is clearly incompatible with Article 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights."
Its use in other EU member states and in Northern Ireland must be stopped, "arguments about competitiveness cannot used as an excuse to promote a reduction in employment standards on grounds of 'competitiveness'. Workers safety and health at work cannot be subordinated to purely economic or financial considerations.
Two specific examples she cited where rulings of the ECJ on working time that were favorable to workers were being ignored, were in the Jaeger and Stringer/Schultz-Hoff decisions. In the Jaeger case the ECJ found that being on-call in the workplace is not rest time and compensatory rest must follow on-call duties. Likewise in March 2009 the ECJ in Stringer/Schultz-Hoff case it was held that the European Working Time Directive requires that employees on long-term sick leave should continue to accrue annual leave while on sick leave.
"Disappointingly the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation has made no move to amend the Organisation of Working Time Act and is denying workers in Ireland the benefits enjoyed by EU colleagues.
For further information, please read:
http://www.ictu.ie/publications/fulllist/etuc-position-paper-on-working-time-directive/
Contact:
Esther Lynch ph: 087 222 2401
Policy & Legislation Officer, Congress