Joan Burton calls on Dunnes management to talk with workers

Tánaiste Joan Burton has called for Dunnes Stores management to engage with the State's industrial relations machinery as more than 5,000 of its workers who are members of Mandate trade union picketed 109 outlets in a strike over working hours.

The Minister for Social Protection, a former Dunnes Stores worker, pledged the introduction of collective bargaining legislation after Easter, which she said would be passed by the summer recess.

She said it would be “critical to modernising our industrial relations framework”.

The Bill will include anti-victimisation clauses “to overcome the understandable fears of the workers who may have taken strike action”.

Ms Burton said that under the legislation, if the employer did not engage with the industrial relations machinery, the Labour Court can make a recommendation and it can be enforced by the Circuit Court.

But Fianna Fáil whip Seán Ó Fearghaíl suggested that if the Tánaiste or the Taoiseach were to "lift the phone to [company chief] Mrs Margaret Heffernan you might do more than any legislation".

Fianna Fáil's Billy Kelleher said the Dunnes Stores management had ignored Taoiseach Enda Kenny's appeal yesterday to them to engage with the industrial relations system in the State and with the trade unions.

He cited the 1980s strike at the company when union members went on strike in a boycott of South African goods because of apartheid.

Ms Burton described the strike as “very regrettable” and said the way to settle it was through the State’s industrial relations machinery.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald highlighted the case of two Dunnes Stores workers who sometimes could not feed their child because they had no security of hours with the company.

She claimed Dunnes Stores management was the main cause of the strike and hit out at the Government for failing to bring in promised industrial relations legislation, despite being in office for four years.

Pointing out that the collective bargaining Bill would be in the Dáil after Easter she called on Sinn Féin to support it and claimed that the protections for workers in the State were better than in the North where Sinn Féin was in government.

But Socialist Party TD Paul Murphy said: “If Marie Antoinette says let them eat cake, the Tánaiste says let them wait for collective bargaining.”

He told the Tánaiste that Dunnes Stores was refusing to engage with workers and “it’s worthless” for Ms Burton to call on the company to engage with the industrial relations machinery.

When Mr Murphy said there had to be an end to the “so-called voluntarist” approach to industrial relations Ms Burton suggested that he was seeking a “Leninist” approach which had not worked anywhere and was not working in North Korea.

Mr Murphy said that in opposition Labour called for a full transposition of the EU directive on part-time work. He said the party could do that immediately and it “would make a real difference to Dunnes Stores workers right now”.

Ms Burton asked if Mr Murphy would support the collective bargaining legislation when it came into the House and the Socialist Party TD asked her in turn if she would accept amendments from the Opposition to strengthen the legislation.