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EUROPEAN REVIEW
ISSUE 40 - Page 6
Irish labour
courts working flat out on agreement breaches
In Ireland the Labour Court performs a
variety of functions including resolution of disputes relating to
industrial relations, equality, working time, the minimum wage,
part-time and fixed-term work. Recently the enforcement of registered
employment agreements has taken up much of its time.
With no equivalent in the United
Kingdom the existence of the Irish Labour Court is seen as conducive to
industrial relations stability by ensuring justice and consistency.
When a collective agreement is made between a trade union and an
employer it can be registered with the court and so be made legally
binding. The decision of the court not only applies to the
parties concerned but to all companies and workers in the same sector
of the economy. There are currently 45 of these REAs, with the most
important including those for the construction, electrical contracting
and printing industries. Last year 43% of cases referred to the court
were complaints by unions that companies had broken an REA, up from 1%
in 2000. According to the chair of the court, Kevin Duffy, the increase
is due to more assiduous monitoring of employer compliance by unions.
The demands on the Labour Court by this type of cases are added to by
disputes involving trade union members in firms that do not recognise
their union for negotiation purposes. The Industrial Relations
(Amendment) Act of 2001 allows the court to impose binding terms and
conditions to resolve such disputes. It made 37 recommendations in 2006
but according to Mr.Duffy, ‘apart from the numbers, the nature of such
cases demands an input by the Court unlike that required in other
industrial relations cases’. However the numbers may reduce from now on
as the Irish Supreme Court ruled that its procedures were flawed in a
case brought by pilots at Ryanair against the company. Ryanair had
challenged the Labour Court’s right to intervene in the dispute.
Nonetheless, in 2006 fewer working days were lost to industrial
disputes in Ireland than in any year since the 1920s which suggests
that the Labour Court is playing its part in maintaining the country’s
industrial peace.
BASED ON
ARTICLES IN EUROPEAN
EMPLOYMENT REVIEW
Recent rulings from
the European Court of Justice
‘Reasonably
practicable’ still legal
The European Court of Justice (ECJ)
has upheld the UK’s approach to health and safety law which requires
employers to ensure the health and safety of their employees only ‘so
far as is reasonably practicable‘. The EU Commission had contended that
its directive, passed in 1989, had not been properly implemented in the
UK because the provision constituted a loophole allowing companies to
claim that safety measures involved too much time, trouble or money to
be ‘reasonable’. However the ECJ considered that the directive’s aim
was not to enforce a ‘no-fault liability’ on employers but only to
ensure a safe workplace in general. The decision was backed by the
TUC’s Hugh Robertson who stressed that ‘what really matters is the
implementation of the existing laws on the ground’.
Sympathy strikes
allowed in Germany
German courts have long interpreted
the country’s constitution as banning secondary industrial action but a
recent case against the trade union Ver.di has been lost on appeal,
opening the door to sympathy strikes. By calling out 20 printers in
support of journalists working for a sister company the union acted in
a ‘proportionate’ way according to the Federal Labour Court.
ECJ to rule on French
Ryanair case
Budget airline Ryanair has lost a case
before France's supreme administrative court and will appeal to the
ECJ. They argued that their workers in France were ‘posted’ from the
company base in Ireland and therefore were covered by the 1996 EU
directive on posted workers. This lays down minimum standards for their
employment based on the law of the host country. However the court
upheld the precedence of a national law that decrees that employees who
work in a ‘habitual, stable and continuous fashion on French territory’
are subject to the entire French labour code.
