Government’s abandonment of living wage ‘shameful’, jobs conference hears

The Government’s abandonment of its commitment to adopting the living wage as the minimum that can be paid to adult workers has been described as “shameful” at an event organised to highlight the importance of “quality jobs”.

Minister for State with responsibility for Employment Alan Dillon told the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) event in Dublin that the challenge “was no longer simply how many jobs we create”.

It was whether they were “good jobs that pay fairly and provide workers with opportunities to learn, develop and progress ... jobs that give people confidence about the future”, he said.

Dillon said several measures had been introduced to make work “more inclusive and sustainable” and that “we’re also very much committed to improving wages”. He noted a recently announced 5 per cent increase to the National Minimum Wage, which is to rise to €14.94 per hour in January.

The related announcement that progress towards implementation of the living wage, put at €16, would no longer be pursued was repeatedly criticised as a Government failure to tackle the issue of in-work poverty.

“A living wage should be a basic principle in any modern liberal democracy where there’s some decency, but that is gone now,” said Ictu general secretary Owen Reidy.

A recurring theme of the event was the growing frustration among union leaders over the lack of progress on the issue of collective bargaining. Many were optimistic about the prospect when the transposition of the EU’s Adequate Minimum Wages Directive, which provides for it as a mechanism to address low wages, was being debated.

Dillon defended the Government’s action plan for the promotion of collective bargaining, a requirement of the directive.

“Jobs are about more than just pay,” he said. “They’re about a voice. They’re about respect and also opportunity. That’s why the implementation of the action plan to promote collective bargaining is a key priority. The action plan aims to strengthen awareness, to strengthen capacity, and constructive engagement across workplaces by respecting Ireland’s long-standing voluntarist industrial relations framework.”

However, voluntarism was described at the event as a euphemism for an employer veto on union recognition, with former Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy saying the term had originally been intended to refer to nothing more than the right to disregard third-party recommendations in disputes.

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Michael Doherty, who compiled the report of the working group of the labour employer economic forum on collective bargaining, the product of a process that included representatives of unions, employers and the Government, said the report was now, as far as he could see, “on the shelf”.

The meeting heard that Government had repeatedly claimed it could not legislate to make engagement by employers a requirement in certain circumstances due to constitutional concerns. Duffy and Doherty said there was no basis for claiming a constitutional prohibition.

“It generally seems to come back to that phrase ‘the attorney general advises against it’, but, of course, we never get to see that advice. Taking a test case to the Supreme Court might be required,” Doherty suggested.

Reidy, meanwhile, said artificial intelligence is the latest example of why collective bargaining is required.

“It has the potential to transform not just the world of work but the society we live in and if the loss of jobs it is set to cause is not handled then we would be foolish to take social cohesion for granted.”