Debate on pay positions heats up

More unions and employers having been setting out their positions on pay as the debate on a new national agreement intensifies. The Mandate trade union published research showing that a third of retail workers are earning less than €10 per hour. Separately, the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) called for wage restraint in the 'short-to-medium term' because of big challenges facing the hotel sector due to a substantial slowdown in domestic consumer demand.
Mandate said more than 310,000 people worked in the retail sector, making it one of the largest employers in the country. General secretary John Douglas warned that there would be no new national pay deal unless the issue of low pay was addressed. Mandate is looking for a 'substantial' flat rate increase for low paid workers in any new deal.

Meanwhile, IHF president Matthew Ryan said hotels could not recover the cost of legally binding wage increases awarded in 2007 and 2008 through price increases or extra sales. He said it was now 'fundamental' that there was a pay pause until at least the end of the 2009 season. "The approach to national pay bargaining must take fully into account the competitive challenges in sectors of high labour intensity, such as Hospitality where the net profit margins are low," he said.

SIPTU has rejected the IHF call. The union's Dublin regional secretary Patricia King said: "This industry generates profits for some of the wealthiest businessmen in the country, yet most of the 97,500 workers it employs are earning only slightly more than the national minimum wage."