Suzanne Harrington: Pay more than €14 to prevent Dublin Airport fiascos

Members of the public at the departures area in terminal 2 in Dublin Airport, Dublin.

Dublin Airport Security Unit is recruiting. It’s an “exciting opportunity” for applicants whose “primary responsibility” would be the “secure and efficient movement of passengers in a manner than enhances the customer’s experience.”

For the lucky applicant, “some opportunities may become available…to work outdoors.”

It’s 24/7 shift work of 30 hours a week but you need to be available for 40. The pay is €14.14 an hour, and some of that work is out in the rain.

As of December 2021, average rents in Dublin are €2,056 a month, having gone up 4.1% since September 2021.

To pay the average rent, before you ever eat anything, you’d need to work 146 hours a month at Dublin Airport ensuring the secure and efficient manner of passengers in a manner that enhances their experience.

If, like me, you needed maths grinds at school, you can still use your fingers to see how this doesn’t add up.

Suzanne Harrington: Generous pay would result in a stampede of applicants.

According to UNICEF, Ireland’s income inequality is one of the worst in the EU, with 14% of the population at risk of falling below the poverty line.

At the other end, one-tenth of the population owns 40% of the wealth.

In the middle are those people turning up at Dublin Airport with the expectation of going on holiday, and not being able to, because €14.14 an hour.

And yes, I’m sure Dublin Airport would say it’s more complex and nuanced than that – I didn’t call them because they seem quite busy at the moment – but those basic finger-maths would suggest that not paying people enough means that they can’t do their jobs.

Obviously, it’s not just in Ireland. In the UK, as an old woman with diamonds on her head was wheeled out in a gold carriage, nurses working full-time are eating out of food banks.

The BBC reports how primary school kids are asking classmates for food; how families are unplugging fridges because they can’t pay their electricity bills.

Like the anteater in the Pink Panther cartoon, neoliberalism / late-stage capitalism / whatever you want to call it is designed to siphon wealth upward, hoovering it up its snout in a one-way suck.

We may not tolerate the kind of insane classism which sees the UK allowing itself to be rogered senseless by public school spunktrumpets, but we still fall to our knees in front of the word ‘profit’.

We have been conditioned to do so. Profit fixes everything. Profit is the winner.

Except clearly, it’s not. Only when things grind to a halt – like when our actual airports stop working – might we question the wisdom of €14.14 per hour for any citizen over the age of 14. Instead of wheeling out excuses when things fall apart, maybe instead we could imagine how an advert for essential workers might look if the rate of pay was not just decent, but generous.

Airport workers, hospital workers, care workers, shop workers, transport workers, education workers – generous pay would result in a stampede of applicants.

Fund it by taxing the rich. See? Finger maths.