ARE TRADE UNIONS STILL RELEVANT?

Union Recognition 100 Years On

Edited by Tom Turner, Daryl DArt and Michelle OSullivan

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.

Introduction: The Continuing Relevance of Trade Unions Daryl DArt, Thomas Turner and Michelle OSullivan.............

1 37

Section I: The Demand for Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century ..................................................................... 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Trade Unions in Europe: Still a Relevant Social Force? Daryl DArt and Thomas Turner ............................................... 39 Do Trade Unions Provide A Democratic Dividend? Daryl DArt and Thomas Turner ............................................... 67 Is there a Representation Gap among Irish Employees? Thomas Turner and Daryl DArt ............................................... 101 Women in Irish Trade Unions: Involvement, Solidarity and the Relevance of Gender Thomas Turner and Daryl DArt ............................................... 119 Polish Workers in Ireland: A Contented Proletariat? Thomas Turner, Daryl DArt and Christine Cross .................... 139

Section II: Union Recognition Workplace Partnership and the Legal Context..................................................................... 159 7. 8. Union Ofcials Experience of Recognition and Partnership at Work in the Irish Private Sector Daryl DArt and Thomas Turner ............................................... 161 Still a Struggle? Union Recognition a Hundred Years On Thomas Turner, Daryl DArt and Michelle OSullivan............. 183

vii

Table of Contents 9. Multinational Companies and Trade Union Recognition in Ireland J. Ryan Lamare, Jonathan Lavelle, Patrick Gunnigle and Anthony McDonnell ................................................................... 209

Section III: Union Organising and Employer Opposition...... 235 10. Organising Methods and Recruitment in Irish Trade Unions Thomas Turner, Michelle OSullivan and Daryl DArt............. 11. Union Avoidance in Europes Largest Low-Cost Airline: Bearing All the Hallmarks of Oppression Michelle OSullivan and Patrick Gunnigle ................................ 12. Union Organising and Employer Opposition: The Irish Experience Daryl DArt and Thomas Turner ............................................... 13. Workplace Activists in Union Organising Campaigns: A Critical Resource? Caroline Murphy and Thomas Turner ........................................

237 261 285 303

viii

FOREWORD

This book is a timely reminder that the core issue in dispute in the Great Dublin Lockout of 1913 the right of workers to collective bargaining and representation remains unresolved. It addresses this issue in the current context, beginning with the question of how relevant are unions in the twenty-rst century. After all, if they are irrelevant, why should there be a continuing demand for them in the workplace? Why, for that matter, should Irish employers be so strenuously opposed to conceding a legal right to collective bargaining and representation which is available in almost every other EU member state if unions are an anachronism? The reason, of course, is that access to collective bargaining is central to determining the type of society in which we live. Apart from taxation policy, collective bargaining is the most important instrument we have for redistributing wealth in a largely deregulated capitalist economy. It serves a crucial leveller role and agent of social progress. Ironically, it is also essential to the survival of capitalism because disposable income generated through the wage share is key to purchasing power. This reality was well understood by Henry Ford and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and it is belatedly being acknowledged by global agencies such as the International Monetary Fund. The more collective bargaining is denied, the more restricted the groups of workers who can avail of it, the less effective collective bargaining becomes. One consequence for unions themselves is the danger of the labour movement becoming sectionalised, with workers fortunate enough to enjoy the benets of collective bargaining retreating into a narrow focus on immediate local concerns. This, in turn, weakens the broader movement and its potential to campaign not just for better pay and conditions but for the broader

ix

Foreword social wage issues that affect us all. It has always been the capacity of our movement to mobilise large numbers of workers and their families that has made us such an important factor in democratic societies. With numbers comes strength and allies, albeit some of them opportunist, who are willing to listen to our message and champion our demands. Without a broad democratic base that is informed by a farsighted vision of the type of society we want, our capacity to confront the powerful vested interests that drive destructive change in a capitalist economy can be fatally undermined. Indeed, Joseph Schumpeters concept of creative destruction has become widely accepted by many politicians and senior civil servants in advanced capitalist economies as the conventional wisdom of our times. Only the patent inability of current austerity programmes and the failure of liberal markets to kick-start the world economy have called this orthodoxy into question outside of the labour movement. This makes it all the more urgent to rebuild ourselves and to win the political battle for collective bargaining to be enshrined in Irish law. We live in one of only three EU member states that have failed to do so already. Of course, the state is never neutral when important issues are at stake. But we should not fall into the trap of regarding the state as simply a creature of capital. Legislation has paved the way for our movement to make important advances in the past and can do so again. Important forces within society have facilitated such measures because they recognised that respect for workers rights was in the interests of wider democracy. Two hundred years ago the British government repealed the Combination Acts that outlawed trade unions. Just over 100 years ago the Trade Disputes Act 1906 was passed to protect unions and their members from being held liable for nancial losses incurred as a result of industrial action, and 70 years ago the Labour Court was established as a forum in which Irish employers and workers could engage in collective bargaining. Each of these measures, however inadequate at the time, were victories won by agitation and alliances with other progressive forces that realised it was vital to address the grossly unequal power relationship that exists between the individual employee and their employer.

Foreword In Britain, the labour movement made even greater advances, due in part to the need to recruit support for the war effort in two world wars. The pivotal role played by the Irish labour movement in the struggle for independence also secured some grudging respect for its right to organise and represent workers. We live in a far more hostile environment today, when such historic debts are long forgotten. The full cost of the political triumph of Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s in breaking the historic compromise between labour and capital, which succeeded the most destructive conicts in human history, is only now being realised. The argument that unions and the values of social solidarity and equity they espouse are archaic fossils is even more widely accepted as conventional wisdom than Schumpeters belief in creative destruction. There is no doubt that our movement does need to change and to do so urgently if we are to meet the challenges of the twenty-rst century. The authors of Are Trade Unions Still Relevant? Union Recognition 100 Years On provide us with wellresearched data and arguments to rebut the charges of irrelevance. They highlight the continuing importance of unions for the political, economic and social health of democratic societies. They assess the effectiveness of some of the initiatives we have been pursuing and give important insights into the strategies and ideology of antiunion employers. Daryl DArt and Thomas Turner need no introduction to experienced industrial relations practitioners on both sides of the negotiating table. Michelle OSullivan is a relative newcomer to the eld but already has an important corpus of work behind her. She gave impressive evidence as an expert witness in the High Court challenge to joint labour committees and employment regulation order legislation by John Grace Fried Chicken Ltd. The searchlight she shone on working conditions for almost 200,000 low-paid workers in the sector was ample testimony of the price many of the most vulnerable people in the labour market pay for lack of access to collective bargaining as a right. Readers will come away from this book with a fuller understanding of the issues confronting the labour movement, as well as suggested strategies for meeting the challenges we now face. Those challenges are every bit as great as those that confronted our forebears in the 1913 Lockout and, as on that occasion, the outcome of

xi

Foreword the struggle will have consequences not alone for us but for future generations of working people and their families. Jack OConnor President of SIPTU the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union May 2013

Click here to order...

xii