Monitoring Decent Work in Ireland Report
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RESEARCH SERIES MonitoringRESEARCH SERIES Decent Work in IrelandMonitoring Decent FrancesWork McGinnity, in Ireland HelenFrances Russell, McGinnity, Helen Russell, Ivan PrivalkoIvan Privalko & & Shannen Enright Shannen Enright Monitoring Decent Work in Ireland Frances McGinnity, Helen Russell, Ivan Privalko & Shannen Enright Available to download from www.esri.ie and www.ihrec.ie © 2021. Copyright is held jointly by the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, 16–22 Green Street, Dublin 7. The Economic and Social Research Institute, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2 ISBN: 978-1-913492-05-2 https://doi.org/10.26504/bkmnext414 This Open Access work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. Monitoring Decent Work in Ireland Frances McGinnity, Helen Russell, Ivan Privalko & Shannen Enright Available to download from www.esri.ie and www.ihrec.ie © 2021. Copyright is held jointly by the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, 16–22 Green Street, Dublin 7. The Economic and Social Research Institute, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2 ISBN: 978-1-913492-05-2 https://doi.org/10.26504/bkmnext413 This Open Access work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. FOREWORD The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (‘IHREC’) believes that the advancement of socioeconomic rights plays a fundamental role in the creation of a more just, inclusive and sustainable society. It is vital that we understand the current state of these rights for everyone living in Ireland as well as for particular groups; and that we are able to monitor progression – and regression – of these rights. By providing a baseline measurement framework across key dimensions of employment, Monitoring Decent Work in Ireland represents an important contribution to the evidence base on the right to decent work in today’s Ireland. Employers in Ireland have obligations in relation to equality and human rights and these are set out under a number of Acts and Codes of Practice – most notably, The Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015, Section 42 of the IHREC Act 2014 (Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty), The Disability Act 2005 and the Code of Practice on Sexual Harassment and Harassment (2012). International treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and the European Social Charter provide international standards of what constitutes ‘decent work’. This report identifies and selects a suite of relevant dimensions and associated indicators to appraise the right to decent work in Ireland. While socioeconomic rights such as the right to decent work are universal, and apply to all working age adults, it is also essential to capture the different experience of particular groups in Irish society – those who are at risk of being ‘left behind’ in the labour market. Of particular importance is the diversity of experience according to equality grounds protected under the Equal Status Acts 2000-2018. Laws and policies relating to economic and social rights contribute significantly to society, but they may be designed or implemented in a way which fails to adequately provide for particular groups or sectors. Effective and targeted monitoring is essential not only for ensuring accountability, so that these laws and policies do not overlook or perpetuate deprivations of economic and social rights, but to make economic and social rights meaningful and tangible. This research identifies six dimensions of decent work. The data presented clearly show how there are many groups overlooked and under-served in the Irish labour market including women, lone parents, young people, migrants, ethnic minorities including Travellers, and disabled persons. These groups are more likely to face restrictions in accessing the labour market, face barriers in occupational attainment, are more likely to have lower pay, lower security and stability in work, and are more exposed to work-related discrimination. The findings also examine the role of ‘employee voice’ in decent work, highlighting the relatively low trade union or staff association membership and coverage in Ireland. Despite the fact that the Irish Constitution confers the right of freedom of association to join a trade union, trade unions currently have no legislative right to be recognised in the workplace for collective bargaining. A key learning from this report is that in order to adequately monitor socioeconomic rights in Ireland, there is an urgent need for robust and widespread disaggregated data in order to interrogate the State on equality in Ireland. Disaggregated equality data can, in essence, expose inequalities – which is the first step in understanding the problems that need to be tackled. Furthermore, disaggregated data can also expose the intersectional and overlapping patterns of exclusion – all of which is essential if we are to ensure everyone’s right to decent work in Ireland. While the findings presented in this report pertain to a pre-pandemic ‘baseline’ state of the labour market, the learnings are essential as we move into a post-pandemic recovery. We need urgently to reappraise how we achieve decent work following the pandemic. This report highlights that particular attention must be paid to: access to work, adequate earnings, employee voice, security and stability of work, equality of opportunity for and treatment in work, and health and safety as well as work/life balance for all workers and their families. I would like to thank the lead author Dr Frances McGinnity and her team in carrying out this important report. It is the ninth report to be published through the IHREC/ESRI Irish Human Rights and Equality Research Programme. These reports have cumulatively enriched our understanding of human rights and equality in Ireland. Sinéad Gibney Chief Commissioner, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission THE AUTHORS Frances McGinnity is an Associate Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Helen Russell is a Research Professor at the ESRI and an Adjunct Professor at TCD. Ivan Privalko is a Post- Doctoral Researcher at the ESRI. Shannen Enright is a research assistant at the ESRI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report is the ninth report in a research programme on human rights and equality and we gratefully acknowledge the funding received from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) to support this research programme. From IHREC’s research team we would like to thank Iris Elliott (IHREC), Sarah Sheridan (IHREC), Cliona Doherty (formerly IHREC) and Cian Finn (formerly IHREC) for their input into the report, also Karen McLaughlin for responding to some legal queries. We would also like to thank members of IHREC’s Work-Employer Advisory Committee for their input to the project. With thanks too to Tania Burchardt (LSE) for her input and constructive comments as research programme steering group member. Thanks also to Doireann O’Brien for her input as part of a research internship at the ESRI. The report also benefited from the detailed comments of two ESRI reviewers, as well as a careful reading from Anne Nolan, who acted as editor of the report. Special thanks to statisticians from CSO – Jim Dalton assisted with the Labour Force Survey with efficiency and good humour: Eva O’Regan and Maureen Delamere also assisted. A large number of people from a wide range of organisations attended a stakeholder engagement event on indicators of decent work, and we thank them for giving their time. We wish to thank Anna de Courcy for copyediting the report and Sarah Burns for managing its publication. Table of contents | iii TABLE OF CONTENTS GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................................... VII EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. IX CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Why develop a Monitor for decent work? ........................................................... 1 1.2 The right to decent work in international standards ........................................... 3 1.3 Equality and non-discrimination in Irish law ........................................................ 6 1.4 Monitoring decent work: How and what to measure .......................................... 7 1.5 Challenges and trade-offs in monitoring decent work ....................................... 12 1.6 Context for decent work in Ireland .................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 2 DECENT WORK: DIMENSIONS AND INDICATORS ............................................... 19 2.1 The engagement process for decent work ......................................................... 19 2.2 Dimensions of decent work and indicators