Union call for collective bargaining to ";transform Irish economy.";

02 July 2019

Union calls for collective bargaining to” transform Irish economy”

 

Finance union says collective bargaining will lead to “better outcomes for workers.”

 

The ICTU biennial delegate conference has passed a motion from the Financial Services Union (FSU) calling for a legislative framework for collective bargaining to be introduced throughout the island of Ireland.

 

The union-which represents finance staff North and South, and in Irish retail banks in Britain-proposed that collective bargaining "is the key to the better future for all that ICTU is campaigning for."

 

Speaking after the motion was passed, FSU Acting General Secretary Gareth Murphy said:

 

"All the research says that workers do want to be part of a union at work. But many are denied that right by anti-union legislation. We want that changed, and we want workers to have the right to be part of a union at work. Crucially for us, we want laws that guarantee union access to non-union members in the workplace, such as those which operate in Australia and New Zealand. "

 

"Collective bargaining is under pressure throughout Europe. From the Irish point of view, it ought to be a source of great shame to see one of our best known companies, Dunnes Store, named in an International Trade Union Confederation 2019 report as a company violating workers’ rights. In the finance sector, KBC, another well-known brand, refuses to engage with unions here in the same way as they do everywhere elsewhere in Europe.  "

 

The FSU motion called for:

  1. The right to access and organise people in their workplace
  2. The right of unions to bargain for and represent members
  3. The right to take meaningful industrial action quickly and effectively if it is required to pursue the interests of members
  4. Union recognition for companies which receive state support and state contracts

 

Concluding, Gareth Murphy commented:

 

"What is required now is a union campaign for real, genuine collective bargaining. Workers deserve no less."