Contemporary Employee Relations

Running head: REPORT 1
Contemporary Employee Relations
Student details:
3/26/2019

REPORT 2
Introduction
JLC stands for Joint Labor Committees. The Joint Labor Committees establish the term and
condition of service for employees in the specific sector and are lawfully obligatory. From the
year 1946, the Joint Labor Committees are in place in Ireland. The Joint Labor Committees have
around two lakhs employees. The JLC made numerous agreements on the pay and condition.
These agreements made by Joint Labor Committees are well-known as Employment Regulation
Orders. The Joint Labor Committees administer the employment’s condition. It also defines a
minimum rate of pay for the workers in various sectors, by the mean of Employment Regulation
Orders. In the following report, key difference between the major provision of the 2012
Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act and major recommendations of the Duffy-Walsh report is
discussed and critically examined. This report also states the trade union movement and re-
regulation of the labor market.
Joint Labor Committees
As per the Industrial Relations Act 1946, the Joint Labor Committees are established by the labor
court’s legal orders. The Joint Labor Committee is considered as an independent body. The Joint
Labor Committees have equal employer and representatives of employees hired by Labor Court,
with the chair appointed by the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. In a case of
John Grace Fried Chicken Ltd & Others v The Catering Joint Labor Committee & Others, it
was held by the High Court that the Joint Labor Committees system was illegal in a case of the
elimination of the Joint Labor Committees in July 2011. It has left dealers on tenterhook in
anticipation of the recommendation (Lange, Ross and Vannicelli, 2016) The Employment
Regulation Orders also ended to have legal effects from July 7, 2011 as according the order

REPORT 3
given by the high court. The following one or more can be applicable to the Labor Court to set
the Joint Labor Committees-
1. trade union
2. Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation
3. The association claiming to stand for the engaged workers or employer
Further, while Richard Bruton was the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The main
objective of Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, was to restructure or
improve the Joint Labor Committees system. The legislation has been introduced by the
government to ease the reviews of Joint Labor Committees in July 2012 (Quinn, 2017). The
wage setting mechanism of Joint Labor Committees was reformed by the Industrial Relations
(Amendment) Act 2012. It came into effect from 1st August 2012. The Labor Court accepts the
Employment Regulation Order drawn up by the JLC as per the Industrial Relations
(Amendment) Act 2012 (Grover, 2017). The Employment Regulation Order is provided legal
effects by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The Industrial Relations (Amendment)
Act 2012 that structured improving wage-setting mechanism of the Joint Labor Committees
became effective from 1st August 2012. The Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2012 renders
for the Labor Court to accept the Employment Regulation Order drawn up by the Joint Labor
Committees (Carne, 2016). The Employment Regulation Orders is then provided legal effects by
Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. Following are the requirements of the
Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2012 -
1. The Joint Labor Committees have the powers to set basic mature rate of wages and two
supplementary high rate

REPORT 4
2. The Joint Labor Committees no longer set rates of Sunday premium. The latest legal
Code of Practices on Sunday functioning is to be made by the Workstation Relation
Commission
3. The corporations can look for the exemptions from the payment of rate of Employment
Regulation Order because of economic instability
4. While setting wage rates Joint Labor Committees would have to consider the elements
like competitiveness and unemployment rate, and employment rate
Moreover, the Section 41A of the Industrial Relations Act 1946 renders for the Joint Labor
Committees Review once in every five years. The report of Labor Court was issued in in October
2013. At that time, the the Joint Labor Committees were existed. The Joint Labor Committees
review was taken into consideration by the Labor Court and then considered by Minister. The
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton had 2 options: accept the labor
court’s recommendation for modifying the Establishment Order for all Joint Labor Committees
or reject the same. Since the report’s publication, Richard Bruton has repeated the commitments
to keep, restructure and improve the Joint Labor Committees (O’Leary and van Egeraat, 2018).
Besides, it is found by ‘Duffy-Walsh’ review that the employees covered by the sectoral wages
agreement do not get the premium in the comparison of workers not covered by the sectoral
wages agreement. In the addition of this, it is also found by ‘Duffy-Walsh’ review that reducing
the basic rate of the Joint Labor Committees to the minimum wage rate’s level is improbable to
have the extensive effects on the employment (Muller, 2017). In the Central Statistics
Office Survey of Income and Living Condition (SILC) 2009, the regression analysis of data is
very useful in developing the understanding in scope to which the REA system and the Joint