Strengthen Workers' Rights to Strengthen Economy
8 Jul 2011
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation says Ireland must strengthen union rights to bring the law here into line with international norms and to help economic recovery
For the first time in a quarter of a century, the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association is reviewing a complaint against Ireland. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions lodged this complaint with the international labour movement's full support.
We welcome the new Irish government's pledge to "reform the current law on employees' right to engage in collective bargaining, so as to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights," as contained in the Programme for Government.
Changes are indeed necessary not only to respect international norms, but also to bolster Ireland's tenuous economic recovery through a better distribution of income.
Ireland is facing a complaint at the ILO because its laws do not properly protect workers' rights. In particular, employers establish and control "Employee Representative Councils" as a means to avoid recognising the legitimate trade unions that employees have joined. Such anti-union practices violate the ILO's convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining, which Ireland ratified in 1955.
Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that it is illegal to offer employees financial incentives to surrender trade union rights. It has also ruled that workers have a right to be represented by their trade union in employment matters and that collective bargaining - workers negotiating collectively with their employer - is a fundamental human right.
It is scurrilous but not surprising that some employers try to gain more control over employees and pay them less by limiting union representation, regardless of international standards.
The real issue is that Ireland's domestic laws fail to prevent employers from penalising workers who engage in collective bargaining, establishing phony "employee associations," or refusing to recognise a trade union that employees have joined.
Ireland's economic vulnerability before the financial crisis was largely based on private-sector borrowing, speculative construction, inadequate financial regulation, and ultra-low corporate taxes. A durable economic recovery will require consumer demand funded by employment income rather than borrowing and speculation. Attempts to undermine wages and wage-setting mechanisms would undermine consumer spending and the prospects for a recovery.
By contrast, improving Ireland's labour legislation to better protect fundamental labour rights would help workers to negotiate wage increases as productivity rises. A sustainable economy depends on workers being able to purchase the output that they produce. Extending collective bargaining to more workplaces would help to drive economic growth.
Recent experience supports the view that trade unions improve economic performance. Countries with deregulated labour markets and legal obstacles to union organising, such as the United States and Ireland, have suffered the largest increases in unemployment.
By contrast, countries with higher levels of unionisation and social security have generally fared better during the economic crisis. For example, Germany's strong labour-market institutions allowed unions and employers to negotiate temporary reductions in working time instead of job losses. As a result, its unemployment rate barely rose during the crisis and it has been strongly positioned to increase output during the recovery.
Ireland should reform its labour laws to better protect employees from anti-union discrimination, stop employer interference in workers' organizations, and promote collective bargaining. These improvements are needed to meet international standards that Ireland has signed onto. They would both benefit Irish workers and strengthen the Irish economy.
- Sharan Burrow is General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, an organization representing 175 million workers in 150 countries, including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. She was a guest speaker at Biennial Delegate Conference, July 4-6.
