The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

JAN/FEB 1993

Information on Terms

of Employment

by Ciaran O'Mara

The EC Council of Ministers

adopted the first significant directive

affecting labour law apart from

health and safety issues on the 14

October, 1991 under the Community

Charter of Fundamental Social

Rights for Workers agreed at

Strasbourg in 1989. The title of the

directive is "Council Directive of 14

October, 1991 on an employer's

obligation to inform employees of

the conditions applicable to the

contract or employment

relationship" 91/533/EEC. The

directive must be implemented not

later than 30 June, 1993.

As is well known, British antipathy

to any developments in employment

legislation at European level since

the election of the Thatcher

Government in 1979 led to a freeze

on practically every Community

proposal in this area. The tide,

however, has begun to turn and the

other eleven member-states adopted

the Social Charter in 1989 and also

adopted an agreement on social

affairs in the Treaty on European

Union signed at Maastricht.

Cleverly, the European Commission

proposed the new directive on

information and terms of

employment and based it at least in

part on the rules existing in the

United Kingdom (and indeed in

Ireland). This may explain why the

UK relented and merely abstained on

the voting (while still challenging the

legal basis of the adoption of the

directive). It would be foolhardy

however to underestimate the

importance of the new directive and

it seems the directive will have a

certain impact on industrial

relations. Before turning to the

directive it is proposed to look at the

existing Irish law.

The Existing Irish Law

The Minimum Notice and Terms of

Employment Act, 1973 introduced

the concept of a written statement of

certain terms of employment into

Irish law. This was a straight forward

copy of the then existing UK

Contracts of Employment Act, 1963.

The 1973 Act did not apply to

certain employees namely:

(a) employment of an employee who

was normally expected to work

for the same employer for less

than eighteen hours in a week;

(b) an employment by a close relative

of an employee in the employer's

household and whose place of

employment was a private

dwellinghouse or farm in which

both resided;

(d) employment in the Defence

Forces;

(e) membership of the Garda

Siochana;

(f) sea crew, under the Merchant

Shipping Acts.

As we shall see later the directive

will involve a major change in the

scope of existing Irish law.

The substantive requirement of the

Act of 1973 is that an employee may

require his employer to furnish him

with a written statement containing

all or any of the following

particulars:

(a) date of commencement of his

employment;

(b) details of his pay, including

overtime, commission and bonus

and the method of calculating

same;

monthly or otherwise;

(d) conditions about hours of work

and overtime;

(e) terms and conditions relating to

holidays and holiday pay;

(f) conditions relating to incapacity

to work due to sickness or injury

and sick pay;

(g) the period of notice which the

employee is obliged to give and

entitled to receive to determine

his contract of employment, or if

the contract of employment is for

a fixed term, the date when the

contract expires.

If the employee requests these

particulars from the employer s/he

must be furnished within one month

with the written statement containing

particulars. The Act of 1973 provides

an alternative method of

information, contained in Section 9

(4) of the Act, which allows an

employer to refer the employee to a

document containing the particulars

requested by the employee under

section 9. The employee must have

reasonable opportunities granted to

him during the course of his

employment to consult the

document, or it must be reasonably