David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They have done precious little to reverse inequality and poverty. In fact, they have deepened it, as all the evidence shows. This is a matter for all of us.It does not matter who is in government; the facts speak for themselves. At some point my party may be in government and will have to make tough decisions. All of the reports that have been published on the issue of low pay by EUROSTAT, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, the Think-tank for Action on Social Change, TASC, and others show that 20% of all citizens in the State are in low paid jobs. That means they do not have a living wage; they are working, but they do not have money to pay basic bills and meet their needs.

In the past few years there have been several industrial relations conflicts: at Talk-Talk, Waterford Crystal, Game, La Senza, Lagan Brick, Clerys, Dunnes Stores and Vita Cortex. In every instance ordinary working people were shafted and not given the protection of the State. That shows that we have very weak industrial relations law. Nothing the Government has done would have prevented any of it from happening. In the next few years, unfortunately, owing to a lack of political will on the part of the Government, there will be more of this. It has brought forward a very weak form of collective bargaining which is voluntarist. It has not brought forward any legislation to prevent tactical insolvencies such as the one that affected the Clerys workers. There is nothing to deal with the prevalence of low-hour contracts and their exploitative nature which is driving under-employment and precarious employment in the State. In turn, it is driving many women into poverty. Women make up the huge ranks of those who live in poverty and “the precariate”, those in low paid, low-hour contract jobs. Nothing the Minister has done will prevent Dunnes Stores from treating its workers in the way it does, or prevent another tactical insolvency such as that in Clerys, or prevent all of the other problems that affect ordinary working people from arising. Every time this happens Ministers and Deputies roll out the tea and sympathy, saying it is terrible, but when it comes to supporting legislation such as the Bills we have published, including the Companies (Amendment) Bill 2015 to deal with the corporate veil and the Protection of Employees (Amendment) Bill 2012 which sought to deal with insolvencies, it votes all of them down because it does not have the political will to deal with the problem.

I judge the Government on what it does. I want to see legislation in place to prevent these issues from arising. Industrial relations law in the State is heavily weighted in favour of employers, not employees. If we want fair hours, decent work and pay, we have to bring forward legislation, which is what the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, wanted. I attended the briefing session which the Independent Senators also attended in the aftermath of the Dunnes Stores debacle. We have produced a Bill which we will publish next week to seek to give effect to the ICTU's proposals on banded hour contracts. That is the way forward. Most of those on low-hour contracts are working between 25 and 40 hours a week for long periods, some for four or five years, but they are stuck on ten, 12 or 15 hour contracts. Our Bill will seek to ensure a worker who works 20 or 30 hours a week would be able to move into that band and the contract should show this. Unscrupulous employers do not do this because they use low-hour contracts to exploit workers. The hours are cut if a worker steps out of line or joins a trade union. That affects many workers. The Minister does not want to deal with any of these issues because when we raise them, he tells us it is a question of competitiveness. That word is always thrown about to prevent the State from doing what it should do to ensure proper treatment for workers. The most competitive countries in Europe are the ones in which there is decent work and pay and that have robust industrial relations laws and proper protections for workers. They do not build their economies on indecent work or low pay. They build them on strong wages, not poverty wages, and workers’ rights, not a denial of workers’ rights. That is what my party wants to see happen.

I commend the Independent Senators for bringing forward this important motion and the ICTU for its relentless campaign to have these issues dealt with.