THE Government is expected to introduce legislation limiting the working week to 48 hours. Employees are also to be protected from arbitrary Sunday working and from contracts which offer them no guaranteed working hours (known as "zero hour contracts").
These are among the main features in a package of industrial relations legislation being prepared by the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald. A Bill imposing stricter limits on the hours young peopled can work will be introduced to the Dail later this week.
At present there is no limit on the working week. The introduction of a 48 hour ceiling could create industrial relations and employment problems with groups of workers who have significant overtime, such as junior hospital doctors and prison officers.
The Working Time Bill is expected to go to Cabinet shortly. In an interview with The Irish Times yesterday, Ms Fitzgerald said that the ceiling would probably operate on a quarterly basis through the year.
This is to allow the 48 hours to be exceeded in employments where there are work patterns requiring long hours over short periods, such as aircraft maintenance or the decommissioning of power stations. Time worked in excess of 48 hours would be reclaimed within the same quarter.
Zero hour contracts will be outlawed under the same Bill. Even in business where staffing levels often fluctuate, such as supermarkets, employers will have to provide regular hours of work and give reasonable notice" of changes.
The Bill also deals with Sunday working. As expected, Ms Fitzgerald said she has decided to accept legal advice that a selective ban on Sunday trading would be vulnerable to legal challenge and that it would be impracticable to ban all Sunday work.
Nor is it likely that there will be any "conscience clause", allowing people in jobs that require Sunday working to opt out for religious reasons.
But the Bill, in accordance with the EU directive on working hours, will reflect the special social value put on Sundays, the Minister said. Employers will have to make it clear in contracts of employment that Sunday work is required as part of the job.
They will also have to compensate employees for working Sundays through premium payments, extra time off, shift bonuses or other existing arrangements.
The Bill is not expected to disrupt existing agreements in most companies, but Ms Fitzgerald said it would ensure protection for more vulnerable workers. For thee first time they will have a legal framework for insisting on their rights.
"There will not be a major costs burden to employers," she said. "In the vast majority of employments there is no problem. Unions and management have already made their own arrangements, but it will deal with situations where common sense has not prevailed."
On the thorny issue of increasing statutory holiday leave from three to four weeks a year by 1999 to comply with EU law, she said that the principle of phasing in the extra days had now been accepted.
Last year, employer bodies and some senior officials in the Department of Enterprise and Employment strongly resisted phasing in any extra days before the 1999 deadline.
It now looks as if there will be one extra day introduced in 1997 and two each in 1998 and 1999. Ms Fitzgerald said the new leave will benefit the most vulnerable 20 per cent of the workforce who receive only statutory leave.
Legislation on works councils was also in the pipeline. This is the European directive that Britain hasn't signed up for and it is interesting to see major British companies are going ahead in signing up for works councils because they see partnership is the way to go.