Minimum wage hike of 10c for 122,000 angers unions – and employers
MORE than 122,000 workers are set for a 10c-per-hour increase in the national minimum wage.
Cabinet has rubber-stamped the increase proposed by an advisory body on low pay.
The increase recommended by the Low Pay Commission will raise the statutory wage from €10.10 to €10.20 an hour from January 1 next year.
This equals an annual wage of €20,757 for someone working 39 hours a week.
“Since 2016, the national minimum wage has increased from €8.65 per hour to its current rate of €10.10,” said Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys.
She said the increase would benefit 122,000 workers.
The minister said she would introduce regulations to ensure the increase did not result in employers having to pay a higher level of PRSI.
Officials from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) walked out of the commission in protest at the proposed increase last month.
Ictu said in a statement that its representatives withdrew as they “could not in conscience” be a party to any recommendation that did not afford the lowest-paid workers an increase similar to other sectors.
“Many of the workers on the minimum wage form part of the group of essential workers who have helped keep our economy going through this Covid-19 pandemic,” said general secretary Patricia King.
“It is therefore completely unacceptable that they and other workers who are the lowest paid in this State would not be afforded decency and fairness by receiving an equitable increase in the minimum wage.”
Chief executive of business group Isme, Neil McDonnell, described the increase as a “virtue-signalling sop that will achieve nothing”.
“It is to our great frustration that setting of the national minimum wage is meant to be evidence-based, yet never is,“he said. “Inflation is currently running at minus 1.1pc as we are in recession.
“While 10 cents per hour is not a lot in nominal terms, and equates to 1pc, this means that the national minimum wage is going up 2.1pc in inflation-adjusted terms.”
He said it made no sense “at a time of record unemployment”, and would not do anything for lower-skilled workers other than make them more expensive to hire.
The previous government set a Programme for Government target of a national minimum wage of €10.50 by the time it left office. This Government has promised progress to a “living wage” over its lifetime.
Former director of PublicPolicy.ie, Dr Donal de Buitleir, chairs the Low Pay Commission.
Employer representatives include Vincent Jennings of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association and Sinéad Mullins of Ibec. Former Maxol Group chief executive Tom Noonan is also a member, as are lecturer Mary Mosse, social policy analyst Caroline Fahey and UCD associate professor Frank Walsh.