Employers fail to comply with employment rights

ALMOST every industrial sector has seen a marked decline in the level of compliance with minimum wage and employment rights over the last year, new figures released by the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA) show.

Of the 165 inspections it carried out of retail, grocery and allied trade employers in the first nine months of this year, just 17% were compliant with the wage rates and employment law requirements for the sector. The figure compared to 23% for the same period for 2009.

It was a similar story in agriculture where compliance fell from 60% in January-September 2009 to 27% in the first nine months of this year.

In hotels, compliance fell from 28% to 22%; in contract cleaning it went from 46% to 38%, in security the fall was from 49% to 36%. In construction, compliance held steady at 43% and in catering it improved from 23% to 40%.

Despite poor compliance, NERA director Ger Deering said catering was focused on heavily over the last year and while 40% compliance is low, it is a marked improvement on the previous year.

Furthermore, the total in owed wages detected during 1,166 inspections in the first nine months of this year was €742,848 – half of the €1,474,650 detected in the same period in 2009.

Speaking at a “walk-in- clinic” on employment law organised by NERA for employers and employees in Cork, Mr Deering said progress was slow but, particularly in the catering sector, it was still progress.

“Our main aim is to get voluntary compliance and to achieve that through information and awareness, inspection and as a last resort through prosecution,” he said.

More than 100 people attended one of the sessions during NERA’s clinic in the Metropole Hotel in Cork yesterday. Mr Deering said the bulk of those were employers seeking information on how to ensure they were compliant with the law.

Mr Deering said NERA has seen a significant increase in compliant employers in the likes of construction and the electrical sector complaining they were losing contracts to non-compliant competitors.

The electrical industry’s current compliance rate is 44% but there are fears it will decrease with the threat from the Association of Electrical Contractors in Ireland to withdraw from the Registered Employment Agreement which sets wages and working conditions for the industry.

Therefore, the electrical sector will be one which NERA will be focusing on next year. Another will be domestic workers.

“Migrant rights groups... have been saying to us that this is an area that needs attention,” said Mr Deering. “These people are very vulnerable and their home is also their workplace. It is much better for people in these sorts of situation that a third party inspects the employer and they don’t have to go and make the complaint.”