Reform of Irish Employment Rights bodies – new website, complaint form & contact

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has announced the launch of a single complaint form for all employment rights and industrial relations claims; a new website - www.workplacerelations.ie; and a new single point of contact for complaints - the Workplace Relations Customer Services of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

Background to the reform

The background to these changes is that, on 15 August, the Minister launched a consultation process on reforming the system of dealing with the employment rights and industrial relations claims. The consultation concluded on 16 September. On 13 October, the Minister published the Department's Summary and Analysis of Responses to the Consultation on the Reform of the State's Employment Rights and Industrial Relations Structures and Procedures. The document is available on www.djei.ie, along with PDF versions of all of the 67 submissions received. The report summarises and details the submissions received, usefully breaking the response to the proposal down into those areas where there was broad consensus and those where further consideration is required.

There was broad consensus on matters such as:

• The need to empower employers and employees to resolve grievances and disputes in the workplace themselves, e.g. through a non-directive information service and employers and employees should be encouraged and helped to resolve disputes at workplace level.
• A single point of entry and two-tier structure with all complaints being heard by a body of first instance and a single route to appeal.
• A consistent method of enforcing awards of employment rights bodies should be established.
• Early intervention and some form of mediation or conciliation to resolve matters prior to hearing or inspection.

Further changes on the way

At the moment there are four different bodies which can hear statutory employment rights breach claims: the rights commissioner service, the Equaity Tribunal, the Employment Appeals Tribunal, and the Labour Court. Industrial relations claims are heard by rights commissioners and the Labour Court. A fifth body, NERA (the National Employment Rights Authority) provides information to the public on employment rights and also has an inspectorate role. The Minister intends that the employment rights and industrial relations bodies are to be reformed so that in all cases the rights commissioner will be the first port of call, the Labour Court on appeal and the High Court on appeal on a point of law only.

The Minster also noted that further reforms will be put in place in 2012 including the establishment of a Workplace Relations Early Resolution Service "the objective of which will be to seek resolution of complaints as an alternative to a formal adjudication, hearing or an inspection." A pilot Early Resolution Service is to start in the first quarter of 2012.