Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Who does it suit to have people in precarious, low paid work? Who does it suit to have a legal framework that allows employers to stagger ten hours of employment over five days and have a workforce at their beck and call? Who does it suit to allow workers to live their lives with the real threat of unemployment hanging over them? Who does it suit when employers can tell their employees that due to unemployment there will always be someone there to take their place and do the hard graft for poor wages in poor conditions?

I commend the Dunnes Stores workers for the stand they took in going out on strike recently. It was a brave move and they are not asking for much. As stated in the Mandate campaign, they are only seeking basic decency. We have come to expect these poor employment practices from certain categories of employer, but many more are successfully hiding their actions from public view. There are a huge number of such examples. The Dunnes Stores workers are asking for a permanent employment contract, decent rates of pay, guaranteed working hours and decent working conditions. It is not a lot to ask. It is not as if they are seeking a doubling of their wages or an extravagant pay increase; rather they are looking for security. They are asking to be employed in a manner that will allow them to know if they can make their rent payments week to week, as well as paying for child care and their children's dinners. It is also about paying for their children's education and clothes.

The Government promised that it would introduce collective bargaining legislation, but it is still nowhere to be seen. People are, rightly, asking when this legislation will be introduced in order to tackle the difficulties faced by many workers. Companies such as Dunnes Stores are now punishing and sacking workers for attempting to engage in a fight for better conditions.

One third of all one-income households are officially recognised as deprived. I do not know how anyone can stand over this shocking statistic. Low pay means increased dependency on social transfers. We all understand this, including the Minister of State. The State is subsidising low pay employers in the pursuit of profit, which is not right. There is talk of economic recovery, but there are people who had nothing before the recession, nothing during it and still do not have a penny now. We are talking about building economic recovery, but for whom are we doing it? That is the question on which we are focusing in this debate. Are we building it on the basis of exploiting other workers? That is what is happening and what the motion is about. We want these things to change.

We know that in Ireland there is a significant low pay problem, with almost 12% of workers being at risk of poverty. The issue is not unique to Ireland. It is also a challenge for workers all over the world, many of whom are facing unfair zero hour contracts, reduced rights and poor working conditions. I have met the organisers of the Fight for $15 campaign which is seeking a living wage for fast food workers in the United States. It has mobilised tens of thousands of workers to strike. Workers in 123 cities in 35 countries are joining demonstrations in the first worldwide co-ordinated strike to achieve fair pay, a safe working environment and improved working conditions. Last week I was in Canada during the Dunnes Stores strike. I spoke to trade union activists in Toronto and Montreal about the dangers of zero hour contracts and Sinn Féin's campaign to achieve a living wage in Ireland. The motion, rightly, calls for an immediate ban on zero hour contracts. Certain groups of workers, many of whom are women, are overly represented in being offered zero hour contracts and precarious work.

Many of these jobs are done by people with low levels of formal education, young people, vulnerable people and undocumented migrants. That is the pattern, not only across the developed world but also in the Third World. I welcome the fact that the low pay commission has been established but it is extremely narrow in its focus and is limited in its remit to looking at minimum wage.

I have heard people asking what is going to happen about zero-hour contracts. We are told that the University of Limerick is doing a paper on it. Great, we have a paper on the way. Yet it must be asked what is going to happen for those workers. That is what people want answers for. I welcome the fact that at least for a couple of hours we have focused on this scandal that is happening across this economy and across the western world.

For some bizarre reason, the Minister of State, Deputy Nash is proposing to replicate the current British commission, which increasingly is being found to be totally inadequate and not fit for purpose. I ask the Minister of State to think again about where he is going. There is also no reference in the proposals by the Minister of State to inequality, poverty, gender, migrant workers, public services access or social protection. That is what the debate is about. It is not about scoring points off each other. What we would like to see happening is that this Oireachtas would move towards establishing a real fair pay commission that will look at this whole area.

Some people are saying we are just going to look at minimum pay. Minimum pay can go up or down, a point that was not made by many of the Minister of State's colleagues. We need to see some primary watchdog on low pay and the commission's responsibilities should be widened to tackle the extent of low pay, not just the minimum wage. This would enable it to make long-term, sector-specific recommendations to the Government of the day. It should also deal with other contributing factors to poverty amongst those employed such as regressive taxation, inadequate public services and State support of low pay.

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