SF rejects Labour’s ‘puerile and misleading insults’ on minimum wage

YOUR issue of September 23 carried misleading comments from Labour party leader Eamon Gilmore where he claimed Sinn Féin was not using its position in the Northern Executive to improve the minimum wage there.

I’m sure Mr Gilmore is well aware that the minimum wage for the North is set by London, not the Northern Assembly. SF would prefer this was not the case – we are demanding fiscal powers for the Northern Executive. We would welcome Labour’s support for this demand, but puerile and misleading insults are hardly the way to go. SF’s record on pushing for improved pay and conditions for workers is clear. Our comprehensive 2006 workers’ rights policy document sets out our demand that the minimum wage be set at 60% of the average industrial wage across the island.

Labour’s position in much less clear. Labour must tell the public whether in a Fine Gael led coalition it would stand over reductions in the minimum wage – a very likely possibility given FG’s record and its pronouncement on workers’ rights issues. Already twice this year Labour has called for the withdrawal of tax relief for trade union membership from workers despite the evidence that those who are not in a trade union have lower pay and poorer conditions.

Labour support for Lisbon and its propagation of false claims of the benefits of the treaty for workers rights revealed that the party has no intention of instigating real change on this island.

Aengus O Snodaigh TD

Leinster House

Dublin 2