Today's decision by the Industrial Court in Northern Ireland is a significant one and vindicates the FSU organising campaign with this category of staff in AIB in Northern Ireland.
Welcoming today’s decision Owen Reidy General Secretary stated, “this is the correct decision, the workers concerned have clearly and definitively expressed their wish to have their right to collective bargaining via their union the FSU. While the legislation in Northern Ireland is somewhat cumbersome, it is noticeable that we have no similar legislation like this in the Republic of Ireland.
We expect the full and proper transposition of the Adequate Minimum Wages directive to change this in the Republic of Ireland. The directive requires member states to promote and facilitate the right of workers to exercise collective bargaining. We know through academic research carried out by UCD that hundreds of thousands of workers in the Republic of Ireland want access to collective bargaining.
We need to move our industrial relations into the 21st century and ensure that where workers want collective bargaining, they NI get it and that it is no longer in the gift of the employer. I congratulate the AIB staff concerned for standing up and exercising the right to achieve collective bargaining in this instance,” concluded Reidy.
