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RESEARCH COMPILED BY the Mandate Trade Union has found that nearly two-thirds of Irish retail staff are earning less than €451 per week.
The report found that while hourly wages were increasing, the majority of workers weren’t working enough hours to earn more than the weekly living wage, which stands at just over €500 per week.
Mandate said that legislative change is needed to enable staff to work more than their ‘banded-hours’ contracts where extra working hours are available.
Dr Conor McCabe, researcher with the Queen’s University Management School, Belfast – who prepared the report for the union, said around a fifth of workers are earning more than the living wage.
He said: “Last July, Mandate Trade Union conducted a survey amongst 3,000 of its members and the feedback showed that just one fifth (21%) were earning more than the weekly Living Wage of €502.
“What’s more, the research shows that nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents (64%) were earning below €451 per week and this is due mainly to the relatively low number of working hours available to retail workers with the CSO showing that such staff work 72% of the average national working week.”
The Mandate survey shows that 75% of the respondents were on a banded-hours contract and, of this cohort, over 50% were on a contract of 31 hours or more a week.
“A significant number of these workers, 40%, would like to work more than their banded hours. While some do get that opportunity, many do not due to a mix of management intransigence and care responsibilities,” Dr Conor McCabe said.
Mandate General Secretary, Gerry Light said that legislative change is needed to allow workers increase their working hours where extra hours are available.
“The 2018 Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act has helped retail workers by introducing ‘banded-hours’ contracts which provide a minimum floor of hours and have gotten rid of zero-hour contracts. ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ shows that further change is needed to enable workers to avail of extra working hours where those hours are available.
“Our experience on the ground shows that where extra hours are available, many companies are actively choosing to by-pass offering those hours to existing staff who are looking for them, instead choosing to go with ‘new starts’ in order to keep their wage bills down.”
Light also argued that the national minimum wage needs to be replaced with a Cost of Living Wage.
“The National Minimum Wage is no longer fit for purpose in terms of helping workers avoid poverty – particularly at a time of rapid increases in the cost of living. To tackle this problem, the National Minimum Wage needs to be replaced by a Cost of Living Wage which would ensure that everyone in work can have enough income to live decently.
“In addition, the sub-minimum rates that apply to young workers and deny them decent incomes – as well as being blatantly discriminatory – need to be abolished too,” Light added.
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There should be no zero hour contrats, good holidays pay, overtime protection of rights etc. However there’s a trail of though that everyone should earn massive amounts of money for their job.
People fail to mention that someone can leave school, not get qualified in anthing and earn €450 a week if they do 40 hours. However, a nurse will go to college, pay €12K on fees, study for 4 years and earn €33K starting off. However, that nurse “missed out” on €450 x 52 x 4 years €94,000 + €12000 fees €106,000. I’ve worked it out and say a nurse has to work for nearly 10 years to overtake the retail worker on cumulative earnings. Yes the nurse will earn more but for the first few years has to “catch up”. And yes the nurse will be better off in the long run but could be capped unless the get promoted. And nurses work scandalous hours.
I get not all will earn €451, work full hours etc. I get the nurse will have a slightly better pension and will overtake the retail worker. But don’t forget the nurse did well in school, went to college, has CPD every year to keep up with changes and regulations, works crazy hours in a crazy run hospital and has to deal with a lot of crap.
@CryptoFactor ☘️: The ”trail of thought” is not that everyone should earn massive money but that everyone who works should be better off than if they are not working and crucially – they should have enough to be able to live on, pay rent, bills, food etc.
Not too much to ask. It’s also not too much to ask that two areas with shockingly poor pay (retail and nursing) are not pitted against each other.
Both should be paid enough to live on and both have a right to dignity in their work. It’s not a competition.
@Adam Hurley: Not trying to pit profession against a profession. I mention at the begining of being well treated, rights etc. But the baiting article suggests that retail workers should be paid more. However, if there is a “living” wage brought in as is suggested, then the wage gap between qualified professions and unqualified profession narrows and makes the likes nursing unattractive.
Workers of retail should definitely earn enoguh to live and earn much more than welfare. On welfare people get a range of benefits and allowances that make working retail unattractive. If the retail wage goes up it makes qualifications even more unattractive.
First fix is not living wage, it’s that welfare is tied to earnings. It’s too close to minimum wage and in some cases surpasses it. When this is fixed bring in living wages but everything has to shift up. If retail now earning €200 a month more all salaries and wages should move in parallel otherwise the gap is once again too narrow. But to meet this prices have to increase and we’re back to square one.
The majority of forced retirees live on 220 euro per week.
@trebloc01: What’s your point?
@trebloc01: Yes. How can disabled people live on so little when people on double that are struggling to pay rising bills?
Whenever I see a statistic like that, with a strangely specific figure, ‘€451′, I get uneasy. Why €451?? If the majority esrn less than €451, is it possible that the majority earn more than €400?? Just put a different spin on the figures.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: As long as you are alright Sean that’s the main thing.
@G Row.: Thanks! :) I might go back to bed for a while.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Do that Sean and while you are at it have a think about why you are such a knob.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: 40 hours x minimum wage of €11.30 = €452.
€451 is the first whole number that is less than €452, hence its use as an anchor point in a report which is analysing the number of people on less than the full time minimum wage.
Not everything is “spin” – usually “strangely specific figures” are used for a valid reason.
@Kevin Collins: Ah! Thank You! Explained! I can get up now.
It shouldn’t cost that much to afford the bare necessities in the first place.
It shouldn’t cost almost twice as much to live in Dublin as it does in Paris or Berlin when the minimum wages in France and Germany are so similar to that here. Astonishing, Cork and Limerick are also more expensive than Paris and, living in Cork myself, I think that’s utterly insane.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/region_prices_by_city?itemId=27®ion=150&displayCurrency=EUR
Until the government resolve the housing crisis, retail workers and everyone doing the essential jobs that allow society to function need to be paid more, and we could be waiting some time for that.
Terrible at a time when these heroes helped us through Covid there now expected to live below the Living wage
@Eamonn Tierney: It might even make people consider that the essential worker and heroes of covid labels for nurses and to a lesser extent those working in other low paid jobs including retail, were just cynical devices to manipulate public opinion, to underpin the covid restriction measures narrative..
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