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State’s ‘voluntary’ labour approach to be reviewed

Professor Michael Doherty from Maynooth University’s Department of Law (small picture) is to chair a group set up by the Government to review collective bargaining and the industrial relations landscape.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar said the High-Level Working Group was being established under the auspices of the Labour Employer Economic Forum (LEEF).

Approach

The Tánaiste said the State’s voluntarist approach to industrial relations — helping parties to find solutions rather than imposing them — had served it well for many years.

But he said some of the statutory provisions designed to back up this voluntary process were currently subject to legal challenge, while there were also moves internationally to look more closely at how employers and unions engaged with each other.

Membership of the group will include senior representatives of union and employer sides nominated by ICTU and IBEC, Professor Bill Roche of UCD, and officials from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of the Taoiseach.

Convene

It will convene in mid-April with the aim of producing an interim report by the end of July 2021 and completing its work as soon as possible after that.

The group will examine:

• Trade union recognition and the implications of this for collective bargaining processes,
• The adequacy of the workplace relations framework supporting the conduct and determination of pay and conditions of employment,
• The legal and constitutional impediments that may exist in the reform of the current systems,
• The current statutory wage-setting mechanisms.

The body will also make recommendations for reforming the current wage-setting mechanisms.

This aspect of its work will start after the Supreme Court rules in a case involving National Electrical Contractors Ireland that is currently before the Labour Court.

The case concerns a sectoral employment order made in 2019, which set minimum pay and conditions for electricians.