State ‘failing abused workers’

THE State is failing to police employers who are engaged in widespread abuse of workers rights, an official report has stated.

Comhairle, the State’s information agency, found widespread abuse of employees’ entitlements and a failure by the State properly to enforce the law.

In a damning report on the poor state of employment rights, Comhairle found:

l Extensive abuse by employers of the work permit system used by foreign nationals.

l Ignorance among many workers of their rights and a fear among them to fight for their entitlements.

l A lack of the most basic protection for employees who have worked for an employer for less than a year.

l Abuse of part-time workers, particularly in certain industries, such as catering and cleaning.

“The State urgently needs to be seen to be policing and maintaining standards, especially in relation to persistent offenders,” said report author Michael Browne.

His report is based on a survey of the country’s citizens information centres (CICs) and the citizens information phone service.

The centres dealt with a total of 821,000 queries from the public in 2005, including 90,000 relating to employment rights, or 11% of the total.

Employee abuse ranged from failure to give holidays or holiday pay to illegal wage deductions, failure to pay the minimum wage and unfair dismissal.

The report said the failure of the State to enforce the law was due to a lack of resources, a lack of information among employees and employers, a need for more protection for employees and the complexity of procedures for enforcing the law.