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Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations commonly denote the relationship between
management and employees. The Irish Constitution guarantees the right
of citizens to form associations and unions.
The main legislation covering Industrial Disputes is the 1990
Industrial Relations Act. This act provides that Trade Unions and their
members are immune from prosecution where an action is “in
contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute”. Before the immunities
apply a number of conditions must be met:
- There must be a trade dispute as defined in the legislation
- The action must be of a type permitted by the legislation.
- The proposal to take action must not have been rejected in a ballot of the workers concerned.
- If the dispute concerns an individual worker all procedures used in employment must have been used and exhausted.
A trade dispute is defined as:
“Any dispute between
employers and workers which is connected with the employment or
non-employment, or the terms or conditions of, or affecting the
employment of any person”
The 1981 commission of inquiry on Industrial Relations reflects the
view that collective bargaining and not legislation should be the
primary source of regulation in the employment relationship.
Traditionally Ireland has been grouped with those countries with
higher than average days lost to Industrial conflict. However, over the
last 10 years this has changed. We have progressed from the stage where
employees did what they were told and followed instructions to
employees now querying the instructions and demanding to be part of the
decision making process.
Evidence is emerging of an increasing preference for employers to implement employee involvement strategies.
In this section
