IBEC set to demand wage overhaul

IBEC will today demand the Government radically overhaul the system which sets wages and conditions for up to 170,000 workers, claiming it is out of touch with the current recession.

At an employment law conference in Clontarf, the employers’ body will say the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) system puts too much pressure on employers to increase wages at a time of financial hardship and could lead to many firms closing.

JLCs set minimum employment standards in a range of industries, including the catering, hotel and contract cleaning sectors.

Committees have equal numbers of union representatives and employers, who try to agree new terms. If a deal cannot be brokered, the chairman, an industrial relations officer, has the casting vote. Once a resultant employment regulation order is ratified, it becomes binding to all industry employers.

Today, IBEC will say that system is “out of date, totally inappropriate for the current economic circumstances and in need of a radical overhaul”.

It will say the rationale for JLCs largely disappeared in 2000 with the introduction of the minimum wage.

IBEC director of industrial relations Brendan McGinty said: “The system is not flexible enough to protect jobs and enterprise, especially in the face of the worst economic downturn since the foundation of the state. Unsustainable wage levels and unduly restrictive practices make it too difficult for us to compete with other countries. The British equivalent of the JLC system, the wage council mechanism, was abolished in 1993 and has not been replaced. For enterprises and employees covered by Joint Labour Committees, there is no provision for an employer who cannot afford the set rate of pay to obtain any exception.”

IBEC is calling for:

* A means for an employer to apply for a temporary exemption from an employment regulation order on foot of financial difficulty.

* The retrospection period for claims to be brought into line with the Payment of Wages Act 1991 – a maximum of one year.

* Joint Labour Committees to be “chaired” by industrial relations officers from the Labour Relations Commission who would be non-voting and conciliatory.

SIPTU said it was outrageous that IBEC was seeking the dismantling of employment regulation orders soon after a deal was struck in the catering industry.

Union president Jack O’Connor accused IBEC of “attacking the lowest paid and the most vulnerable workers in the country”.