During the summer the Irish Parliament finally adopted legislation reforming the country’s industrial relations framework. Ireland was under pressure from European and International law, especially from the ILO to better respect employees’ rights’ to form trade unions and enter into collective bargaining. The reforms do not alter the voluntary principle upon which the country’s labor relations system is based (where employers are not obliged to recognize a trade union nor negotiate working conditions with employees). They do however affect the legal framework that trade unions can employ to improve working conditions when employers refuse to negotiate. The law also implements new arrangements for extending sector agreements.
The government was looking to strike a balance between the current voluntary approach to industrial relations (zero State injunctions) that characterizes the Irish model and respecting ILO International standards on workers’ rights and collective bargaining that had been judged as lacking in Ireland’s legislation (c.f. article No. 8399). The new law looks to guarantee the means by which unions that are not recognized by an employer and with whom the employer refuses to negotiate but which have a significant number of members working for the employer, can turn to the Labor Court so that working conditions may then be defined.
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