The Industrial Relations Act of 1990
Irish labor law has not been comprehensively updated since the turn of the 20th century. Since Ireland has developed a strong telecommunications, industrial and high-tech sector since the early 1980s, new laws were necessary to reorganize the nature of labor disputes and their means of conciliation. Labor and the nature of work has changed radically in Ireland, and this new comprehensive law reflects this.
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Unions and Strikes
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Union membership is high in Ireland. This comprehensive reform spends about half its time worried about the nature and function of strikes and disputes in general. The right to strike peacefully is stressed. There are, however, new restrictions. First, all strikes must be agreed upon by the local union membership. Second, the voting to strike must be done through secret ballot in order to avoid pressure from the union leadership. Third, a one-week notice must be given to the employer before the strike begins. Fourth, the right of strikers to peacefully and non-coercively persuade other workers to join the strike is also affirmed. Once these procedures are followed, the employer cannot interfere with workers striking, and no court will hear any injunction request.
Conciliation
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Throughout the law, the Irish government repeatedly states that the preferred route for all labor disputes is through arbitration and conciliation. The broader purpose here is to limit the number of strikes in the country by creating a new bureaucracy that must be waded through before a strike is considered legal. The official government agency for this is the Labor Court, which is under the Ministry of Labor. The court works alongside the Joint Labor Committee, which is charged with developing proposals and plans for conciliation. However, the court in this case is the last resort before a strike is permitted. The institution of first resort is the Labor Relations Commission.
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The Function of the LRC
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The creation of the LRC is the main innovation of this comprehensive reform law. It serves as the primary vehicle for labor conciliation. It functions under the direction of the Labor Ministry, but the Ministry does not control its functions or tells it how to rule. The LRC is to perform regular research into labor relations into the country. When a dispute is referred to it, as it must be, the Commission must then gather as much evidence as possible from all relevant parties to the dispute. It must act in a scrupulously fair manner.
Membership of the LRC
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The LRC has six members. Two are appointed from the labor Ministry among those bodies that it determines "are representative of organized labor." The Ministry also appoints two members of its own choosing. It also then appoints two members that represent management and the employer. The general expectation of the law is that the LRC will become the main vehicle for labor conciliation rather than the court of the strike.
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References
- Photo Credit Irish flag with shamrock image by Sophia Winters from Fotolia.com
