Chris Dooley,

Industry and Employment Correspondent

The "vast majority" of private sector workers choose not to be in trade unions and new legislation should recognise this, IBEC said yesterday.

Mr Brendan McGinty, IBEC's director of industrial relations, also called for small and medium-sized enterprises to be made exempt from some labour law legislation. Conditions imposed by working time, unfair dismissals and other legislation were hindering the ability of Irish enterprises to be competitive, he said.

Mr McGinty told IBEC's annual human resources summit in Dublin that the law should reflect the "direct employment relationship" that most employers have with their employees. "Legislation that gives priority to a collective ethos or which assumes that everyone is in a union does not reflect the Irish workplace of the 21st century. A greater balance in the framing of employment legislation is required," he said.

His comments will not be well received by IBEC's social partners in the trade union movement. Mr McGinty said that he was not attempting to be populist, but to reflect the concerns of employers.

New legislation was being framed, he said, to meet the requirements of the EU directive on workplace consultation. This directive provides employees with the right to regular and ongoing information and consultation about matters which directly affect them.

A consultation document has been published by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, with a view to bringing legislation forward next year.

Mr McGinty said there were many existing examples of good consultation practices in workplaces which did not have trade unions.

It was important that the new legislation recognised that such arrangements were perfectly valid and capable of meeting the requirements of the EU directive.