Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A sound and stable economy is built on fair, stable and decent work. At the moment we are building an even more unequal and unfair economy than the one we had before the fall of the Celtic tiger. We are building this economy on precarious, low-paid work which brings little protection for workers and their families and puts more strain on social protection to pick up the tab for the gap between what workers are paid and what they need to survive. We now have a Low Pay Commission to investigate the situation. Every day, Deputies in working class communities hear stories from our constituents of families struggling to survive despite the fact that they are working every hour they can get. An economy which does not reward work and punishes those that cannot work or cannot find work is an economy which criminalises working class people and treats them as second class citizens.

In the past, ordinary working people had a reasonable expectation of finding employment, which though hard and often monotonous was secure and allowed them to afford the most basic things needed for some measure of comfort in life, namely, to be able to feed their family, pay their bills and meet their rent or mortgage and still have something to engage in some form of leisure. This is for many today a pipe-dream as they are forced to work in low-paid jobs, which are completely insecure. While large lay-offs are no longer as common as they were five years ago, every week workers wonder what hours they will be given by their employer in the future and whether it will allow them to keep the lights on, put bread on the table and keep the roof over their head. This is best seen in the increase in working people experiencing homelessness. I cannot count the number of people in employment whom I have sought to help who have now become reliant on emergency accommodation. They have been placed with their children in hotels away from their schools, their work and their community. What is the point of work if working people cannot keep a roof over their head?

Currently, minimum wage workers rarely get the 39 hours required to earn the approximately €17,000 per annum they are often said to earn. That is far less than the €35,000 the Taoiseach thinks minimum wage workers get. In fact, many minimum wage workers only get approximately 15 hours a week. On average, that would net a worker just €6,487 a year, which is barely enough to rent a room in Dublin these days. Even two full-time minimum wage earners would need to fork over approximately 50% of their combined earnings to rent a house in Dublin. That is before one factors in water charges, the cost of ESB, Internet, a TV licence, transport costs and bin charges.

People cannot live on such wages, but their employers want everyone but them to pick up the tab. Dunnes Stores has now gone as far as to punish workers for seeking better conditions by cutting their hours or even getting rid of them.

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The majority of these workers are women, who despite much reform in our society remain major contributors to the economy through millions of hours of free work they do in the home. These are the hardest working people in the State yet they are the lowest paid by far.

When these people cannot make work pay enough to live in dignity we need more than a commission, we need root and branch reform of how our economy treats workers at the bottom. Does it continue to support employers in maximising exploitation or does it support workers in achieving a fair day's pay for a fair day's work? The responsibility for this situation lies with the Government. It is its responsibility to regulate the market to ensure that workers receive fair treatment and that all citizens can live in some level of comfort. Zero hour contracts, work place intimidation, rock bottom pay levels and union free work places are the fault of Government inaction on protecting workers and promoting fair and equitable treatment.

We cannot allow a system to remain in place that allows employers to punish women workers for becoming pregnant as we heard was happening to some Dunnes Stores' workers on flexi-hour contracts. Workers are being taught in these work places that they are first and foremost economic units and their needs and their lives come second in the quest for maximum profit. We cannot allow a situation where workers who have been in place for years get reduced hours at busy periods while the workplace is flooded with cheaper temporary workers. Sinn Féin and the Labour Party tabled a motion on this issue during the previous Dáil but like so many of Labour's principles this has been left at the door in order to meet the demands of the right and Fine Gael.

In the United States, US, a major campaign has been going on to raise the minimum wage. The evidence from organisations such as the Economic Policy Institute shows that an increase in wages would in the US create nearly 100,000 jobs by increasing consumer spending power. These benefits would be even greater with implementation of rent controls and an increase in council-owned social housing stock which would increase rent revenues to local authorities while also cutting costs for the low-paid and stabilising rents across the private market.

If we want a fair and decent economy which will be stable and provide decent lives for those working in it we need to embark on a major campaign of reform and this must start with the Low Pay Commission. We must raise the minimum wage to €9.65 per hour. We must abolish zero hour contracts which only provide flexibility to exploit; end, through legislation, victimisation in the work place; reform pay-related social insurance, PRSI, to support low paid workers who receive pay increases; and begin the process of implementing a living wage which will ensure decency and dignity for all workers and access to the most basic needs for their families such as housing, health care, education and transport. An economy which cannot or will not ensure the comfort of those who prop it up is not worth having. Low pay and zero hours should be unacceptable. Exploitation of workers is unacceptable in any society. Everyone needs some certainty in their lives, proper working hours and rotas. I call on colleagues across the political divide to support our motion and not water it down or support amendments or even say there is legislation coming down the road. That is not worthy of anyone.

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