Home > News >
Coalition to Protect the Lowest Paid
Wednesday 26 October 2011, 01pm
Mandate Trade Union is supporting the initiative undertaken by the Coalition to Protect the Lowest Paid which is calling on you to do everything in your power to protect the lowest paid workers by working with your Dáil colleagues to urgently bring forward legislation to re-establish Joint Labour Committees (JLCs) which were eliminated by a High Court ruling on 7 July 2011.
Despite assurances in late July by the government that legislation re-establishing JLCs would be given the highest priority, there has been no indication that the legislation is forthcoming since the Dáil returned. Cleaners, hotel and restaurant workers, security guards, farm labourers and shop workers cannot afford to wait any longer.
The Coalition to Protect the Lowest Paid is made up of workers, trade unions and community organisations including SIPTU, Mandate, Communications Workers’ Union, UNITE, Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, Poor Can’t Pay Campaign, Community Platform, the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland and the National Women’s Council. For the past year, we have been campaigning to defend the pay and conditions of thousands workers in the lowest paid sectors of the economy.
In addition to the urgency of legislation reviving JLCs, the Coalition is also greatly concerned that the new legislation and any proposed changes to workers’ pay and conditions are fair and ensure that low wage workers’ income is not reduced. A reduction of income for low paid workers is not only an attack on the most vulnerable in society but it also makes no economic sense and will not lead to job creation, a significant point confirmed by the government’s own independent review of JLCs (The Duffy/Walsh report) published in May of this year.
We hope that we can count on your active work and support in urgently bringing forward JLC legislation and that the terms of the legislation secure the best outcome for our economy and for the lowest paid workers who form its foundation.
comments powered by