Majority of Irish retail workers earn below €451 per week, new research shows

New research from the Mandate Trade Union has found that nearly two-thirds of Irish retail staff are earning less than €451 per week.

While hourly salaries were rising, the majority of workers were not putting in enough hours to make more than the weekly living wage, which is currently little over €500 per week, according to the survey.

Mandate says that legislative change is needed to allow employees to increase their working hours where extra hours are available so that they can get a decent weekly income.

A fifth of workers are claimed to be making more than the living wage, according to Dr. Conor McCabe, a researcher at Queen’s University Management School in Belfast who created the analysis for the union.

He said: “Last July, Mandate Trade Union conducted a survey amongst 3,000 of its members and the feedback showed that just one fifth (21%) were earning more than the weekly Living Wage of €502.

“What’s more, the research shows that nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents (64%) were earning below €451 per week and this is due mainly to the relatively low number of working hours available to retail workers with the CSO showing that such staff work 72% of the average national working week.”

According to the Mandate study, 75% of respondents had banded-hours contracts, and within this group, more over 50% had contracts that required them to work at least 31 hours per week.

“A significant number of these workers, 40%, would like to work more than their banded hours. While some do get that opportunity, many do not due to a mix of management intransigence and care responsibilities,” Dr Conor McCabe said.

Mandate General Secretary, Gerry Light said that legislative change is needed to allow workers increase their working hours where extra hours are available.

“The 2018 Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act has helped retail workers by introducing ‘banded-hours’ contracts which provide a minimum floor of hours and have gotten rid of zero-hour contracts. ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ shows that further change is needed to enable workers to avail of extra working hours where those hours are available.

“Our experience on the ground shows that where extra hours are available, many companies are actively choosing to by-pass offering those hours to existing staff who are looking for them, instead choosing to go with ‘new starts’ in order to keep their wage bills down.”

Light also argued that the national minimum wage needs to be replaced with a Cost of Living Wage.

“The National Minimum Wage is no longer fit for purpose in terms of helping workers avoid poverty – particularly at a time of rapid increases in the cost of living. To tackle this problem, the National Minimum Wage needs to be replaced by a Cost of Living Wage which would ensure that everyone in work can have enough income to live decently.

“In addition, the sub-minimum rates that apply to young workers and deny them decent incomes – as well as being blatantly discriminatory – need to be abolished too,” Light added.

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