Employment laws stalled by collapse of Government

SEVERAL pieces of key employment legislation, long sought by trade unions, have been stalled by the collapse of the last Government and the resultant general election.

Chief among the casualties is the Employment Law Compliance Bill 2008. At the launch of that piece of legislation, then Enterprise Minister and now Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said it would “modernise the labour inspectorate, strengthen enforcement of employment rights and work permits, promote greater compliance in the workplace and increase the penalties for those employers who seek to gain advantage by denying employees their entitlements under law”.

One of the key facets of the bill was to give legal standing to the National Employment Rights Authority.

According to Industrial Relations News, which has been following the progress of a number of pieces of employment legislation and has compiled those that are being shelved, the Employment Law Compliance Bill went to Second Stage in the Dáil and was referred to Select Committee in March 2009, but has not progressed since then.

Among the other bills which have been seriously delayed by the election is the Employment Agency Regulation Bill 2009, while published in July 2009, still has not been brought into force.

The legislation was intended to put a legal framework on, as then Labour Affairs Minister, Billy Kelleher, put it, “the licensing and regulation of employment agencies which supply agency workers to an end user, or hirer, undertaking in Ireland”.

There has been huge concern among trade union figures about the increasingly frequent replacement of previously full-time roles by contract positions filled by employment agency staff.

Worker representatives are determined that agency staff should be given the same rights and entitlements as full-time workers and are also adamant that legislation needs to be in place to stop employers from “breaking” strikes by drafting in employment agency staff.