Financial Services Union calls for the modernisation of the Protection of Employment Act in meeting with Minister Richmond

Neale Richmond TD, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with special responsibility for Business, Employment and Retail with John O Connell, General Secretary FSU.

Employee Representatives are dissatisfied with how the 30-day consultation process was handled by the employers says FSU.

John O’Connell, General Secretary of the Financial Services Union (FSU) has called for the modernisation of the Protection of Employment Acts  in order to  create a fairer, transparent, and equal system.

In a meeting today between the FSU and Neale Richmond TD, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with special responsibility for Business, Employment and Retail the FSU presented the Minister with findings outlining experiences from employee representatives who were involved in redundancy discussions with their employers.

Commenting after the meeting Mr O’Connell said:

“We welcome the opportunity to meet with Minister Richmond and to highlight the shortcomings in current legislation in relation to the thirty-day consultation period in relation to a collective redundancy situation.

Current legislation requires the employer to inform the Minister of the redundancies and consult with Employee Reps with a view to reaching agreement. It does not require the Employer to engage with a trade union even if its workforce are members of a trade union.

Overall, the experience of Employee Representatives during these tech redundancy consultations was a poor one with our members referring to :

• Poor training provision and the inherent imbalance of resources available to both sides during the process.
• Very short timeframes, employer delay tactics and ending processes too quickly.
• Poor employer engagement but with very little potential repercussions on the employer.
• No dispute resolution procedure where no agreement was reached, and a lack of trade union representation allowed when requested by employees.

The position of Employee Representatives is clear.  They want their Union to be present and involved in the redundancy discussions and they see the value that trade unions bring to their side of the process.

We emphasised this point to Minister Richmond and asked him to consider the eleven different recommendations that we feel would create a fairer, transparent, and equal system.”

Some of our key recommendations include:

• The law, or a statutory-based WRC Code of Practice, should provide for a simple effective election process for Employee Representatives with independent verification where a union is not recognised.
• While the consultation is happening Employee Representatives should be full- time released from their jobs in order to fulfil the important role of Employee Rep.
• Legal council for Employee Representatives, of their choosing, must be funded by the employer.
• Trade union representation and attendance at meetings, if requested by Employee Reps must be mandatory for Employers to facilitate.
• The legislation should provide a non-exhaustive but clearer list of mitigations employer must consider first before moving to any form of redundancy.
• Where no agreement is reached, and after the 30-day extension, there should be a very clear and mandatory dispute resolution procedure utilising the WRC and/or Labour Court.

You can access the full report here  https://www.fsunion.org/assets/files/pdf/fsu_lessons_from_tech_redundancies_a5.pdf

ENDS