Peadar Tóibín: Demands Fair Pay and End to Bogus Employment
Peadar Tóibín sets out Aontú's case for stronger worker protections, calling for fair pay, an end to bogus self-employment and enforcement of banded hours. He warns that 140,000 people in Ireland are working yet remain in poverty and urges collective bargaining and a resourced enforcement agency.
Main claims
Peadar Tóibín argues that good work must guarantee good pay, decent terms and dignity at work. He highlights low pay, precarious contracts and bogus self-employment as ongoing threats to workers' livelihoods and to the tax base.
Policy proposals and enforcement
Tóibín recalls bringing forward a banded hours contract bill in 2015 as a response to erratic working hours and calls now for a properly resourced agency to enforce employment law. He stresses the need for a national minimum wage that addresses the 140,000 working poor and for legal rights to collective bargaining and trade union membership.
Economic context and public services
Tóibín links the cost-of-living crisis, housing and rent pressures to rising wage demands and argues public services act as a social wage that helps workers. He warns that concentrated wealth and weak employee power are damaging workplace relations and social cohesion.
Consequences for businesses and society
Tóibín says businesses function best when there is an equilibrium between employers and employees, and that unchecked employer power leads to exploitation, poorer business performance and broader social harm. He calls on government to protect workers and restore balance in the labour market.
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Go raibh míle maith agat, Aontú supports workers' rights. Good work should ensure good pay, terms and conditions. A worker who works hard should have a decent wage and should be able to live well. Aontú is committed to justice in the workplace and the rights of workers on the island of Ireland to fair pay for fair work and to allow for fair living conditions as well. And we support dignity at work and the rights of workers to equitable pay and working environment. Now low pay and precarious work affects many many people in this country and some firms are treating workers without respect and with limited guarantees in terms of paid hours. I brought in the banded hours contract bill back in 2015 and that bill was aimed to address erratic working hours in this country. So right now we need a strong resourced agency to ensure proper compliance and legislation enforcement in these practices I believe. Exploitative work such as bogus self-employment is a significant problem still today and it is an incredible situation. One it robs the state of the taxes that it's entitled to and that should be rooted out but it also robs the workers themselves their rights and safeguards in terms of being able to look after holiday pay, sick pay and pension entitlements as well. The national minimum wage needs to be sufficient in truth to deal with 140,000 workers who currently are the working poor in Ireland and it is an incredible situation that we have 140,000 people who are working but still do not have enough to be able to make ends meet in this country and that's a major major problem. No business, no employer should have the right to build a business model that can only function when it provides a level of standards in terms of wages paying conditions that are not enough for people to be able to survive and live well. That should not be allowed and actually I think one of the biggest threats that we have to the cohesion of the world at the moment is that over concentration of wealth that exists the fact that one percent of the wealthiest own about 43 percent of global assets and I do think the lack of employee power in relation to that relationship with employers leads into that issue. I do want to say that the government also needs to look at the role it plays in this and public services you know really can help in terms of workers. It provides a social wage, a type of income top-up in relation to this so it means that workers have more disposable income because the services that they need are provided properly by the state as well and the truth when I speak to workers around the country they tell me some of the biggest problems that they have at the moment is the cost of living crisis, is the price of houses, is the cost of rent and if you look at the incompetency of this government in many ways they are driving wage inflation in this country because workers are trying to keep up and being able to pay for the costs that are coming at them as well. So before I became a TD I worked as a management consultant and I worked with hundreds of different businesses and I noticed very strongly that only when businesses were in equilibrium with employees in terms of the power dynamic are you likely to have a proper functioning business where you have happy employees who are productive and working well. When that power dynamic actually shifts where one of either have too much power well then actually that leads to a really difficult working situation and leads to damage in relation to the functioning of that business and for an equilibrium and for power balance to exist between employers and employees you have to have the right to trade union membership, you have to have the rights to collective bargaining because if you don't have that balance in that relationship there will always be a section of employees who will be at the wrong end of that power balance and will suffer and that suffering will be seen in terms of exploitation and the loss of the ability to survive in terms of the work that they do. So what we're calling for the government to do is to adhere to make sure that collective bargaining is brought into this country and that workers have a proper right to be able to be represented.
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