THE GOVERNMENT is to introduce legislation to ban companies using temporary workers supplied through employment agencies to break strikes.
It is also to change the Competition Act to allow groups such as freelance journalists and session musicians to engage in collective bargaining. The measures form part of the non-pay elements of the new draft national pay deal agreed yesterday.
The new deal provides for pay increases of 6 per cent phased over 21 months. In the private sector there will be a pay pause of three months, while a pay pause of 11 months will apply for public-sector workers. Employees earning less than €11 per hour in the private sector or €22,463 in the public sector will qualify for a further rise of a 0.5 per cent.
The deal also contains extensive non-pay elements, including a Government commitment to examining proposals for an ex-gratia scheme to address the situation of foreign nationals who previously held employment permits and who subsequently became undocumented through no fault of their own.
The Government is also to establish a new framework encompassing terms and conditions for agency workers that are appropriate to the Irish economy.
The draft deal says that, in the context of legislating for this framework, the Government has agreed to ban, except in essential services, the use of agency workers by an employer "for the direct replacement of employees in cases of an official strike or lock-out, where the employees are not acting in breach of a Labour Court recommendation".
The deal also says the Government will introduce legislation next year to exclude groups such as voice-over actors, freelance journalists and session musicians, when engaging in collective bargaining, from the terms of the Competition Act.
The Government is also to bring forward legislation next year to ban victimisation of people for trade union activity.
The deal was welcomed by the Government and some unions such as Impact. However, it was criticised by the small and medium business group Isme and the hotel sector.