EMPLOYERS WHO breach workers' employment rights may in future have to pay up to two years' salary in compensation under measures to be introduced by the Government.
Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin said yesterday that new legal measures would standardise the maximum compensation for breaches of all employment legislation at 104 weeks' pay.
Maximum compensation for breaches of some employment rights is set at 104 weeks at present but in other areas people receive a lower figure.
Mr Martin said workers recruited through employment agencies would also receive greater protection under planned employment rights legislation.
He said the legislation would include a provision requiring that registered agreements governing minimum employment standards in certain sectors of the economy would apply to agency workers from the time they are recruited.
The new measures, to be introduced through amendments to existing legislation, are additional to new employment rights outlined by Mr Martin in the Employment Rights Compliance Bill published on Tuesday.
Mr Martin made his comments at the launch of the Labour Relations Commission's (LRC) strategic plan for the next three years.
He said the "stunning achievements" of the commission, the Labour Court and the social partnership process in resolving disputes could be seen by the figures for the number of days lost to strikes.
"In 1987 there were 260,000 days lost because of industrial action, while by 2007 this had reduced to just over 6,000 days, the lowest since records began in 1923. Indeed, 2007 was the fourth year since 2002 that has produced a new record low for work days lost to disputes."
Mr Martin said the commission's record of success in dispute resolution was clear, and its conciliation services consistently settled about 80 per cent of all cases referred to it.
"By the same token Labour Relations Commission chief executive Kieran Mulvey said that between 2000 and 2007, it had received 44,400 employment rights and grievance referrals.
"Up to last weekend we had a further 2,000 in 2008 alone. Last year we had over 9,000 referrals. This by any standard represents an explosion in employment rights/grievance referrals and is placing an extraordinary workload on the commission."
Mr Mulvey said in recent weeks staff had been coming into work at 7.30am on a voluntary basis to deal with the workload.
He said over the next three years the commission intended to promote an increase in its capacity to manage the major transformation under way in the economy by engaging with the social partners in seeking to move from "the sometime crisis-driven industrial relations scenario to a more sustainable but sharper negotiating process to achieve the mutual objectives of the parties".
The chairman of the commission, Maurice Cashell, said there was no support among Government, employers or unions for radical change to the Irish disputesresolution system.
