Developments in Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management in Ireland

Developments in Industrial Relations and Human Resources Management in Ireland

Embargo: 00:01 a.m. Friday 30 March 2007

William K. Roche, Professor of Industrial Relations & Human Resources, School of Business, UCD

Special Article in the Quarterly Economic Commentary, Spring 2007.

Ireland’s widely articulated vision of achieving competitive advantage through the skill level of the workforce and new forms of co-operative employment relations is not borne out by developments on the ground, according to Bill Roche, Professor of Industrial Relations & Human Resources at the School of Business at UCD.

In a wide-ranging article in the Spring edition of the Quarterly Economic Commentary, Professor Roche pointed out that Ireland’s level of spending on education was among the lowest of the advanced economies, and the country ranked 17th out of 22 in the level of job-related training received by adult workers. Survey data also revealed that the proportion of the workforce employed in companies that had implemented multiple progressive practices for the management of people was below 10 per cent. The promotion of co-operative relationships in the workplace, through workplace partnership arrangements, had been one of the cornerstones of public policy over the past decade. However, progress in this area had been modest in both the private and public sectors sector, and recently some of the most radical change initiatives in the public sector appear to have seen little advantage in following the partnership model. The new Information and Consultation Act that came into force in 2006, giving employees rights to information and consultation over aspects of the operation of the businesses in which they work, seemed unlikely to change things to any significant degree.

While unions have been viewed as social partners in the running of the economy and have gained real influence in the making of public policy, they continue to experience a decline in their level of organization and density. Currently the overall level of union density stands at 35 per cent, and the level in the private sector is around 28 per cent. Such a pattern of progressively declining unionization in a buoyant labour market is unprecedented for Ireland.

Commenting on the recent Supreme Court judgement in the Ryanair case, Professor Roche wrote that the so-called ‘right-to-bargain’ procedure, which had allowed unions to negotiate pay and conditions in firms that resisted union recognition, was now under a cloud. While this procedure had assisted unions in organizing members, Professor Roche suggested that the quantitative effects of the procedure on union recruitment and organization had in fact been quite modest.