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.