Keep Sunday pay and Overtime Rates! Protest at the Dáil 6:30pm Wed 22nd June

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | event notice Thursday June 16, 2011 19:58 by Oswald Bastable - UNITED LEFT ALLIANCE

Keep Sunday pay and Overtime Rates!

RESIST MINISTER BRUTON'S ATTACKS!

Protest at the Dáil 6:30pm Wed 22nd June

The Fine Gael Minister, Richard Bruton, is planning to attack the earnings and conditions of low-paid workers.

Since 1946, workers in shops, security, hotels, catering and construction have enjoyed legal protections through Employment Regulation Orders and Registered Employment Agreements. These laid down basic rates of pay above the national minimum wage and gave workers extra payment for working on Sunday, overtime rates, sick leave and defined rest periods.

Bruton wants to do away with these legal rights by July. We need to get organised to stop him.

THE CHANGES

Bruton is proposing the following changes:

· Abolition of extra pay for working unsocial hours on Sunday. At the moment, many workers get paid at time and a third, or double time if they are on overtime..

· Allow employers to claim ‘ an inability to pay’. So instead of a security worker getting €10.01 an hour which is what their JLC specifies – they would be cut back to the bare minimum wage.

· Reduced overtime rates.

· Remove protection for young workers under 18.

· Reduce the number of Employment Regulation Orders and end coverage of working conditions such as sick pay.

· Allow employers not to keep proper records about which workers were employed at certain hours. This would make it easier to evade the law. Inspection reports by the National Employment Rights Authority show that there is already widespread non-compliance among employers.

THE EXCUSES:

Richard Bruton, the IMF and the employers’ organisation, IBEC, claim that these measures will help to create jobs.

But even the official Duffy -Walsh committee set up by the government stated ‘that lowering the basic JLC rates is unlikely to have a substantial effect on employment.' Studies in Britain show that the abolition of their equivalent of Employment Regulation Orders over 20 years ago had no impact on job creation.

The Employment Research Centre in Trinity College also stated that the Employment Regulation Orders help create jobs because they make it hard for employers to use ‘zero hour’ contracts.

The real reason for the changes is that the large retail and restaurant chains want more profit. Last year, Supermacs increased their profits by 18% to €6.2 million while Eddie Rockets made €1.5 million. These companies are just using the recession to attack workers’ rights.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Bruton can be beaten back – but we will have to mobilise.

If you are not in a union, join one immediately. Talk to your workmates about organising resistance to any attempt to cut your pay.

You should press your union for a major demonstration to the Dail to show our anger. And you should insist that if Bruton does not back down, that the unions call a national one-day strike to defend hard won conditions.

The United Left Alliance will be putting a motion to the Dáil on Wednesday 22nd June. Come to the protest at the Dáil during the debate and vote at 6:30pm

http://www.unitedleftalliance.org 087 2400331 or 087 2839964