£5 an hour is only fair
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Tens of thousands of workers are struggling on £2 and
£3 an hour. This is unacceptable
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A fair minimum wage - this was the demand from the
Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) who started a
public campaign for a £5 per hour minimum wage in the
26 Counties last week.
ICTU press officer Oliver Donohoe told An Phoblacht
that over 200 billboard sites have been rented across
the 26 Counties for the next month and Congress is to
lobby TDs and prominent people in public life to
support their campaign..
``Tens of thousands of workers are struggling on £2 and
£3 an hour. This is unacceptable'' said O'Donohoe. He
believed that the vast bulk of people would consider £5
an hour a fair minimum wage particularly when you
consider that it is ``women and young people who are
most affected''.
``They are the hidden face of the economic boom,'' said
Donohoe. ``They are the people you don't see working in
restaurants, offices and hotels, the people who are
often at work before and after the bulk of other
workers, the people who are making the Tiger economy
possible''.
Ryanair's double standard
Chief executive Michael O'Leary earned £17 million. A
Ryanair ground staff worker would have to put in 1,250
years work to earn the same amount of money.
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The mixture of high profits, low costs and no frills
has made Ryanair into one of the most profitable
airlines in Ireland or Britain. While also being the
most profitable airline, SIPTU ground handling staff at
the company claim it is one of the lowest payers in the
industry.
This Friday 50 ground staff are to begin limited
industrial action in pursuit of a wage increase at the
airline. Paul O'Sullivan, a SIPTU official representing
the workers, told An Phoblacht that they had written to
the company in early December and that Ryanair were
``still refusing to talk to the union''.
Now the SIPTU members are to begin work stoppages for
three hours out of every eight and a half hour shift.
O'Sullivan believes the stoppage will lead to delays
and cancellations of Ryanair flights.
``Ryanair should be a pay leader in the industry,''
maintained O'Sullivan. He says that Ryanair workers
were the most productive and performed the highest
range of functions compared to workers at other
airlines.
A Ryanair statement claims that their ground staff at
the company ``are paid more money, enjoy better benefits
and more time off that their equivalents in other
companies at Dublin airport, including Aer Lingus and
Servisair''. O'Sullivan claims that ``the company
propaganda is not true''.
Whatever about the differing claims of SIPTU and
Ryanair, the actual working conditions of Ryanair
ground staff are worth highlighting.
The top rate of pay after five years is £13,600 which
seems at one level to be higher than the £12,600 that
Servisair staff earn. Part of this £13,600 is made up
of monthly bonuses of £108 a month for workers who take
no sick leave. There is also a shift allowance of £100
a month. Workers put in six days on and three off and
end up working two weekends out of three for an annual
salary which is barely the average industrial wage.
Contrast this £13,600 with the average payout to
Ryanair directors of over £928,000 each in 1995, or the
fact that over the three years previous to last May's
stock market flotation of the company, chief executive
Michael O'Leary earned £17 million . A Ryanair ground
staff worker would have to put in 1,250 years work to
earn the same amount of money.
One law for the rich
Those who doubted that there really was one law for the
rich and one for the poor should be silenced with the
findings of a recent survey carried out by the
26-County Revenue Commissioners which showed that
almost one in five people who earn over £250,000 a year
pay an average tax level of only 20%. Worse still, a
significant minority were paying almost no income tax
courtesy of tax shelters and loopholes in the state's
tax regulations.
Such loopholes and shelters are not accessible to the
ordinary PAYE workers who will have to go on paying
over 40% of their salaries in tax. Some of the tax
avoiders got their tax write-off because they are
members of syndicates in Dublin's International
Financial Services Centre.
The survey also found that 8.5% of the high earners
paid less than 5% income tax. Only 8% paid tax rates of
over 40%. The findings were presented to Finance
minister Charlie McCreevy. One wonders will he act on
these tax shelters in the forthcoming finance bill and
remove just one of the more glaring inequities of the
26-County taxation system.
The life of Reilly
Christmas came a few days early for Bean king Tony
O'Reilly. As chief executive of Heinz, O'Reilly enjoys
the benefits of being allowed to buy company shares at
a bargain basement price. Tony is already the largest
individual shareholder in Heinz. He now owns shares
worth £218 million, 1.7% of the company.
On 12 December O'Reilly bought 1,125,000 shares, making
a gain of $35 million dollars on the transaction.
O'Reilly hands over the chief executive job on 30
April. Don't worry about Tony missing out on any more
of those lucrative share options. He will remain on as
Heinz chairperson until 2002.
£10,000 pay rise for TDs
``I honestly believe that in this day and age... it is
not fair to ask TDs to work six days a week - and work
damn hard for £34,000''. This was the reasoning Bertie
Ahern gave for supporting a £10,000 wage increase for
Leinster House TDs. The fact that thousands of other
Irish workers put in the same amount of hours for a lot
less money seemed lost on Bertie or that TDs already
earn more than double the average industrial wage.
We asked Sinn Fein's TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin what he
thought about the proposed wage increase. He told An
Phoblacht that TDs and all public servants should get
the same wage increases as other workers. He said
``There should be no exception - the same pay rise for
all''.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)