Irish Ferries meets union in worker wage row

Irish Ferries is meeting with union officials to discuss the situation of a foreign worker from the Philippines in a row over low wages, it was confirmed today.

The trade union, SIPTU, has claimed that the woman, Salvacion Orge, was being paid slave wages – receiving just over €1 an hour to work as a hairdresser on the Isle of Inishmore Ferry.

The company and the trade union have both said that this afternoon’s meeting at the Irish Ferries head office in Dublin was just for preliminary talks to explore the issue.

The union has claimed Ms Orge was hired by a recruitment agency and was being paid just over €350 a month.

It is understood she was expected to work 12 hours a day, seven days week, with just three days off a month – the equivalent to just over €1 an hour.

Ms Orge has been refusing to leave the Inishmore Ferry, which is travelling the Rosslare to Pembroke route, after she lost her job as a beautician over 24 hours ago.

Her contract, which was through a hiring agency, was terminated after the level of her wages were queried with Irish Ferries.

Paul Smyth, SIPTU branch secretary, said the union would fight for equal pay and conditions for Ms Orge.

Irish Ferries has admitted this was a situation that should not have happened.

Earlier, Alf McGrath from the human resources department of Irish Ferries, said Ms Orge was working through a contract between herself and a another contracting company.

“It is an aberration, it is an error on our part,” he said. “In terms of the 1,600 employees we have seasonally and permanently their rates of pay and conditions of those employees are the envy of every other shipping company,” he said.

Mr McGrath added: “When myself and my senior colleagues became aware of it on Wednesday afternoon we immediately took the attitude that the situation was untenable, as far as we were concerned it couldn’t be justified one way or the other.”

It is believed that two other women from the Philippines, which the union has claimed were employed in similar circumstances, have been taken off another ferry and repatriated.

Mr McGrath said: “They were dealt with in accordance with the contract that they have, and we were to be absolutely open about this, we were intending to deal with the Inishmore vessel in the very same fashion.

“The person on the Inishmore has become a member of a trade union and the trade union have made representations.”