Businesses struggling to keep doors open oppose pay rises
Mr Nash was addressing the joint Oireachtas committee on jobs, enterprise, and innovation which was examining the National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Bill 2015.
“We are very serious about issues pertaining to low pay,” he told the committee.
“It is the job of the Low Pay Commission to set the rate of the national minimum wage for next year exclusively. That is a major piece of work. The national minimum wage has not been reviewed to any great degree since 2007.”
He said the commission must make sure recommendations were evidence-based to ensure changes to the minimum wage — currently €8.65 per hour — did not have a negative impact on employment and competitiveness.
Esther Lynch, social affairs officer with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said analysis showed that raising the minimum wage hourly rate was important, but she said that rate was only part of the problem faced by low-paid workers.
“They are more likely to be subject to a range of unfair employment practices, such as deductions from wages and unstable ‘zero-hour’ type arrangements in which they are vulnerable to having their hours reduced,” said Ms Lynch.
“In that context, improving certainty about hours of work is as important as increasing the rate that the worker is entitled to be paid — both are equally critical factors.”
She said it was essential that workers who gave evidence to the Low Pay Commission were “protected from possible employer reprisals”. “It is unacceptable that workers could be threatened — of having their hours of work reduced, for example — if they give evidence regarding their own situation,” she said.
However, employers giving evidence to the committee cautioned against increases to the minimum wage.
Stephen McNally, president of the Irish Hotels Federation, said it supported a minimum wage, but he said “unjustified” increases would have a strong negative effect on small and medium-sized hotels, particularly outside the major urban areas. He said that the rate should not be increased in the “medium future”.
Adrian Cummins, of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said: “If the desire of the Government and the Oireachtas is to ensure people have more disposable income in their pocket at the end of the week, that they are able to support themselves and their families, then I suggest we look at what emanates from elsewhere in the Oireachtas; the most direct way to increase take-home pay is to reduce the excessive burden of taxation and the controversial USC on employees.”
Mr Cummins said he had spoken to members across the country and they were in a “state of disbelief” there was talk of increasing wages when they were struggling to keep their doors open.
Mark Fielding of ISME said a rise of 4%, 5% or 10% in the minimum wage would see people earning about €12-€14 looking for similar increases, causing “ripples through the economy”.
“That has to be taken into account,” he said.
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