Urgent Legislative Solution to JLC Issue Now Required Says Congress
13 Jul 2011
Congress says that yesterday's decision by the Government not to proceed with emergency legislation to protect low paid workers in the wake of the High Court decision on Joint Labour Committees leaves many people in a state of insecurity about their conditions of employment.
"The Government must now act quickly to enact substantive legislation to restore the constitutionality of the JLC system. Leaving it to the autumn is far too relaxed a position to take given that up to 200,000 workers are covered by JLCs" said General Secretary, David Begg.
Mr Begg noted that draft legislation to eliminate the flaws identified in the JLC system is already available in the form of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill, 2009.
"It may be that some slight revision to that Bill will be necessary to take account of all aspects of the Judge's ruling but it could still be progressed quite rapidly if there was a will to do so" he added.
While many workers affected will have contracts of employment insulating them against arbitrary changes by unscrupulous employers the experience after the reduction in the Minimum Wage suggests that some employers will try it on, according to Congress. Trade Unions will fight such exploitation as we fought the Davonport Hotel but the point is that an important public law protection of sixty years standing has been removed from the most vulnerable cohort of workers in the middle of an economic depression, Congress said.
"This is an acute public interest issue which should engage the immediate and continuing attention of the Oireachtas until it is fixed" concluded David Begg.