Keep Sunday Pay and Overtime Rates! Support Dáil Motion, Wednesday June 22, 6.30pm
The United Left Alliance will be putting a motion to the Dáil on Wednesday 22nd June. Come to the protest at the Dáil during the debate and vote at 6:30pm
Kenny-Gilmore Government Robs the Poor
UNITED LEFT ALLIANCE
Keep Sunday Pay and Overtime Rates!
RESIST MINISTER BRUTON’S ATTACKS!
Protest at the Dáil 6:30pm Wed 22nd June
The Fine Gael Minister, Richard Bruton, is planning to attack the earnings and conditions of low-paid workers.
Since 1946, workers in shops, security, hotels, catering and construction have enjoyed legal protections through Employment Regulation Orders and Registered Employment Agreements. These laid down basic rates of pay above the national minimum wage and gave workers extra payment for working on Sunday, overtime rates, sick leave and defined rest periods.
Bruton wants to do away with these legal rights by July. We need to get organised to stop him.
THE CHANGES
Bruton is proposing the following changes:
- Abolition of extra pay for working unsocial hours on Sunday. At the moment, many workers get paid at time and a third, or double time if they are on overtime..
- Allow employers to claim ‘ an inability to pay’. So instead of a security worker getting €10.01 an hour which is what their JLC specifies – they would be cut back to the bare minimum wage.
- Reduced overtime rates.
- Remove protection for young workers under 18.
- Reduce the number of Employment Regulation Orders and end coverage of working conditions such as sick pay.
- Allow employers not to keep proper records about which workers were employed at certain hours. This would make it easier to evade the law. Inspection reports by the National Employment Rights Authority show that there is already widespread non-compliance among employers.
THE EXCUSES:
Richard Bruton, the IMF and the employers’ organisation, IBEC, claim that these measures will help to create jobs.
But even the official Duffy -Walsh committee set up by the government stated ‘that lowering the basic JLC rates is unlikely to have a substantial effect on employment.’ Studies in Britain show that the abolition of their equivalent of Employment Regulation Orders over 20 years ago had no impact on job creation.
The Employment Research Centre in Trinity College also stated that the Employment Regulation Orders help create jobs because they make it hard for employers to use ‘zero hour’ contracts.
The real reason for the changes is that the large retail and restaurant chains want more profit. Last year, Supermac’s increased their profits by 18% to €6.2 million while Eddie Rockets made €1.5 million. These companies are just using the recession to attack workers’ rights.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Bruton can be beaten back – but we will have to mobilise.
If you are not in a union, join one immediately. Talk to your workmates about organising resistance to any attempt to cut your pay.
You should press your union for a major demonstration to the Dáil to show our anger. And you should insist that if Bruton does not back down, that the unions call a national one-day strike to defend hard won conditions.
The United Left Alliance will be putting a motion to the Dáil on Wednesday 22nd June. Come to the protest at the Dáil during the debate and vote at 6:30pm
www.unitedleftalliance.org 087 2400331 or 087 2839964, 086 4183732
Private Members Motion on Policy on Joint Labour Committees, Employment Regulation Orders and Registered Employment Agreements
Dáil Éireann notes:
1)That the Duffy/Walsh Report to the Minister for Enterprise, Employment and Innovation concludes inter alia : “We have concluded that lowering the basic JLC rates to the level of the minimum wage rate is unlikely to have a substantial effect on employment.” and “ we conclude that it is not accurate to suggest that the body of primary employment rights legislation currently in force adequately covers matters dealt with by EROs and REAs.”
2) That According to the OECD, Ireland suffers from some of the highest levels of low‐pay. Over 21% of full‐time employees are ‘low‐paid, compared to a Eurozone average of 14.7% and
EU Commission data shows that labour costs (include wages and employers’ contributions) in the Food & Accommodation sector in Ireland are 6% below the EU-15 average.
3) That very many people covered by JLC/EROs and REAs are vulnerable people such as immigrants and young people and those working in small employments not amenable to trade unionisation
4) That the majority of workers covered by the JLC/EROs and REAs system are women and that any reduction in remuneration in this sector will widen the gender income gap contrary to national and EU policy
5) That due to the serious and disproportionate reduction in male employment, female workers form a higher proportion of primary bread winners and that reduction in female earnings would have a major impact on household and child poverty contrary to national and EU policy.
6)That reduction in the remuneration of already lowly paid employees will result in a reduction in revenue to the state through PAYE and VAT and will lead to an increase in claims for Family Income Supplement payments.
7)That any reduction in remuneration to employees covered by JLCs and REAs will transfer income from the lowly paid to employers and/or investors including some large multi-national companies
8) That any reduction in remuneration to affected employees who spend their entire income in Ireland will reduce demand in the economy and accelerate the elimination of jobs caused by the policies of the previous government and the support by the current government for the measures contained in Budget 2011
9)That it is this reduction in demand in the economy that is destroying jobs not JLC/ERO rates.
10) That any provision for derogation from JLC/ ERO and REA rates of remuneration in individual employments is likely to lead to a collapse of the system as a whole and the reduction of already low wages generally, further reduction in demand and increased job elimination in the economy as a whole.
Dáil Éireann deplores any proposal of Minister Bruton to enact any of the following measures:
- Reduction of JLC and/or REA rates
- Reduction or abolition of extra pay for working unsocial hours such as on Sunday.
- Allow employers to claim ‘ an inability to pay’.
- Reduction in overtime rates.
- Removal of protection for young workers under 18.
- Removal of annual increases for years of service
- Removal of recognition of craft grades
- Reduction of the number of Employment Regulation Orders and end coverage of working conditions such as sick pay.
- Allowing employers not to keep proper employment records, which would make it easier to evade the law.
Dáil Éireann calls on the government as a whole to abandon these measures and believes that if Labour Party deputies in particular vote against this motion they will be in breach of the principle of solidarity with the lower paid and the traditions of Larkin and Connolly
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Careful with that Axe Richard :
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
Irish Times Story : Labour challenged over proposed wage changes
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0618/1224299155395.html
tomasoflatharta
Jun 18, 2011 at 9:46 am
Day One of the Dáil Debate,
https://tomasoflatharta.com/2011/06/17/news-of-resistance-to-the-cuts-on-the-pages-of-the-irish-times/
Do you hear the sound of the Labour Party squirming?
tomasoflatharta
Jun 23, 2011 at 10:11 am
Day Two of the Dáil Debate :
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2011/06/22/00026.asp
tomasoflatharta
Jun 23, 2011 at 3:49 pm