Corporate governance - All workers need reliable protections

THE protections offered to workers, especially those in low-paid, vulnerable sectors, is one of the ways a society can be judged.

The difference between the protections offered the most secure workers — usually full-time public employees — and those on, say, a zero-hours contract in the retail sector is another way a society can be judged. That difference, great or immaterial, shows if a society really believes in universal rights or whether it gives patronising lip service to the idea of basic, enforceable rights for all workers.

In Ireland, at least, that gap seems almost unbridgeable, an unfortunate reality confirmed at Dublin department store Clerys last week, when workers were given as little as 30 minutes notice that their jobs were gone. The prospect of such arbitrary and callous treatment of staff in the public service is thankfully unimaginable.