Ireland

Organization responsible for the statistics

The statistics are collected, compiled and published by the Central Statistics Office.

Objectives and users

Not available.

Coverage

Strikes and lockouts

The statistics cover: Working to rule, go-slows, and overtime bans are not included.

Minimum threshold Duration of at least one day or aggregate time not worked of at least 10 workdays.

Economic activities

No particular branches of economic activity or sectors are excluded.

Workers

Workers directly involved, workers indirectly involved and workers rendered idle in economic units other than those directly involved in the strike or lockout. As well as regular paid employees, including part-time workers, the statistics cover temporary, casual and seasonal workers; in principle, unpaid family workers are also covered, as well as workers laid off and those absent on sick or annual leave or absent for other reasons.

No particular occupational groups are excluded.

Geographic areas

Whole country.

Types of data collected

Information on the outcome of the dispute, the terms of settlement and official or unofficial status are collected but not processed or published.

Concepts and definitions

Industrial dispute

A temporary stoppage of work wilfully effected by a group of workers or by one or more employers with a view to enforcing a demand.

The definition is taken from the Resolution concerning statistics of industrial disputes adopted by the Third International Conference of Labour Statisticians (1926).

Methods of measurement

Strikes and lockouts

The basic unit of measurement used to record a strike or lockout is the case of dispute. The resumption of a strike or lockout that is interrupted but later recommences, still due to the same case of dispute, is considered to be the same strike or lockout regardless of the time lapse.

All work stoppages resulting from a single case of dispute, occurring in different establishments of the same enterprise or in establishments of different enterprises, whether simultaneously or at different times, are counted as one strike or lockout only.

Economic units involved

The economic unit is the enterprise, defined as the smallest legally separate unit of production. The number of economic units is not measured in the case of a general strike or a political strike. In a public sector strike, the public sector is taken as a single economic unit (employer).

Workers involved

The number of workers involved is the maximum number of workers that took part during the course of the stoppage, even if some workers participated for only part of the duration. Part-time workers are counted as individuals on the same basis as full-time workers.

Duration

The duration is measured in workdays from the date the strike or lockout began in the first economic unit involved to the date it terminated in the last one.

Time not worked

Total time not worked is measured in workdays, either by ascertaining the total amount of time not worked on each day of the strike or lockout and summing these totals, or as the product of the number of workers involved and the duration; care is taken in the latter case to take into consideration the differing daily levels of worker participation. Time not worked is measured for workers directly involved and workers indirectly involved. The shorter working hours of part-time workers are taken into account as time not worked by part-time workers involved is converted to full-time equivalents. Overtime is not taken into account in the estimate.

Classifications

Cause of dispute

Related to collective bargaining: