Irish ferries dispute/flags of convenince/low wages/ and the Nice treaty etc

ronbyrne2005

billy the squid wrote:

Then why didnt the head of Irish ferries take a cut in his wages and benefits when the workers did. €600,000 is a ****load of money. Could you live on €4 an hour? why don't you try it.




What Irish Ferries are doing is illegal under employment legislation, it is illegal to sack someone and replace them with someone taking a lower wage. The position has to be being made redundant, not the person. The ship operates out of Ireland, it brands itself as Irish so it should have respect for Irish law.



Firstly your comments are about Dell are bollox to be honest. We did not take any US jobs when Dell expanded here as Dell does not manufacture any products destined for the US market in ireland. This is done in Austin Texas by American workers.. When Dell started up in Liemrick (castletroy) it had 150 workers, both their plants in Austin Texas and their plants here in Liemrick expanded from what were very small workforces. Also, while wages at dell are pretty ****, they are above the minimum wage.

Secondly, there is a whole rake of US states which do not have a minimum wage, and any american company had a choice of states to set up in over there before deciding to come here.

Most of the companies came here, not because it was cheaper, but because of the location in europe, our high level of education etc. and you will also find that they are bound by the minimum wage laws of this country.



The workers are Irish citezens, they should be protected by Irish law, Irish Ferries (should have) a certificate of incorporation in Ireland therefore (if it does) it should abide by Irish Law, Irish ferries has its HQ in Ireland, therefore it should abide by Irish law.



so not only is this setup hurting the workers, it is also hurting the exchequer.

The PESP, Partnership 2000, and PPF are what made this country a success, what irish ferries are trying to do is pull over 20 years of hard work apart.

why should a ceo take a pay cut when its not his fault the company is heading for financial choppy waters? its the going rate for a ceo of a plc of this size,the company is succesful on its freight business,his renumeration would be voted against at the agm of the company of he wasnt earning it.as for living on 4euro an hour ,the new employees dont have to "live" on 4 eur an hour their living costs(food accomodation etc) are covered by irish ferries,the 4 euro an hour is very good for them,they could save 10k a year working on the ship which is a lot when their local wages are 5k a year!

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,also they could re-incorporate in estonia or latvia and avoid irish employment law like in this example form sunday business post.

"operator Viking Line that has some parallels with the Irish situation.
Viking Line obtained an injunction against the International Transport Workers Federation in June, which could have serious repercussions for other trade unions in the European Union such as Siptu. According to Davy analyst Stephen Furlong, the London judgment is based on the freedom of establishment provisions contained in EU treaties, that is the right of companies to set up wherever they like in the EU.
The decision effectively meant that Viking was free to establish a subsidiary in Estonia and employ Estonian crew - allowing it to cut costs drastically and to compete with other ferry operators employing low-cost Estonian crews on the Baltic routes."


maybe im wrong on dell but dont kid yourself the multinationals arent here cos we are so educated ,its primarily a tax driven thing as pointed out by the new york times and wall street journal recently,transfer pricing etc.we are taking tax revenues from the american treasury.

obviously they dont have to abide by irish law in relation to the current irish workers.but dont worry the emplyees are being well looked after with generous payoffs, some getting up to 300k ,not bad for a semi skilled/unskilled worker.
partnership is dead mate,may have been necessary in the bad old days of the 80's early ninties ,nowadays employees negotiate with their employers directly instead of having the arcahic unions get involved except in the protected public sector where benchmarking etc was a disgrace.the public sector is a disgrace ,overpaid and underworked/inefficent.
the big private sector unions know their days are numbered ,numbers are dwindling and they are losing the power they had over the govenment on the past,they are using the irish ferries incident to try and boost themselves coming up to the new partnership negotiations.feck partnership let the market decide! outsource the whole public sector and we might get some decent services!

billy the squid

Before I go into the post below I would just like to point out that people on minimum wage are also Tax Free,

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

why should a ceo take a pay cut when its not his fault the company is heading for financial choppy waters?

Said company made 20 million profit last year, and handles 30 percent of Irish imports/exports.

Irish Ferries' claim that they are headed for the poorhouse is scaremongering. nothing more and nothing less. the company is in a perfect position to continue making a profit.

its the going rate for a ceo of a plc of this size,the company is succesful on its freight business,his renumeration would be voted against at the agm of the company of he wasnt earning it.as for living on 4euro an hour ,the new employees dont have to "live" on 4 eur an hour their living costs(food accomodation etc) are covered by irish ferries,the 4 euro an hour is very good for them,they could save 10k a year working on the ship which is a lot when their local wages are 5k a year.

So they get to live on the boat, without access to alternative employment offering better pay in either Ireland, the UK and France. Sounds more like bonded labour to me than a decent job. It is also worth pointing out that because these outsourced workers are not from the countries which Irish ferries serve, employee turnover will be much higher than before, The training costs will no doubt eat into their already decent profits.

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,

Irish ferries wants to register in Cyprus. a move to do so would be bad for ireland, some examples of the safety record of cypriot transport companies.
link

also they could re-incorporate in estonia or latvia and avoid irish employment law like in this example form sunday business post.

"operator Viking Line that has some parallels with the Irish situation.
Viking Line obtained an injunction against the International Transport Workers Federation in June, which could have serious repercussions for other trade unions in the European Union such as Siptu. According to Davy analyst Stephen Furlong, the London judgment is based on the freedom of establishment provisions contained in EU treaties, that is the right of companies to set up wherever they like in the EU.
The decision effectively meant that Viking was free to establish a subsidiary in Estonia and employ Estonian crew - allowing it to cut costs drastically and to compete with other ferry operators employing low-cost Estonian crews on the Baltic routes."

According to the article you quoted above, Viking only operate using estonian workers on their Baltic routes. How many eastern european routes does Irish ferries have? oh yeah, zero. I counted them twice to be sure.

maybe im wrong on dell but dont kid yourself the multinationals arent here cos we are so educated ,its primarily a tax driven thing as pointed out by the new york times and wall street journal recently,transfer pricing etc.we are taking tax revenues from the american treasury.

This is still incorrect, we are not taking bugger all from the US treasury as the opening of the Dell EMF plants in Limerick did not affect the size of Dell's plants in Texas.

Not only does the likes of dell pay employers PRSI to the revenue commissioners here ontop of other taxes, but it pays tax on its profits in the US.

obviously they dont have to abide by irish law in relation to the current irish workers.but dont worry the emplyees are being well looked after with generous payoffs, some getting up to 300k ,not bad for a semi skilled/unskilled worker.

If they can afford to pay nearly 15 times the annual industrial wage, then they can afford to pay these workers the same as the Irish workers which are there already.

billy the squid

partnership is dead mate,may have been necessary in the bad old days of the 80's early ninties ,nowadays employees negotiate with their employers directly instead of having the arcahic unions get involved except in the protected public sector where benchmarking etc was a disgrace.the public sector is a disgrace ,overpaid and underworked/inefficent.

I cannot comment on the public sector as I work in the private sector, and your opinion that unions are arcahic is just that, your opinion.

feck partnership let the market decide! outsource the whole public sector and we might get some decent services!

Will you be singing the same tune when your signing on for the dole after someone less expensive takes over from you?

ronbyrne2005

billy the squid wrote:

Before I go into the post below I would just like to point out that people on minimum wage are also Tax Free,



Said company made 20 million profit last year, and handles 30 percent of Irish imports/exports.,
this is a low level of profit for a company with such high revenue and capital employed.irish ferrie return on capital employed is about 3 or 4% its cost of capital is 8%! thats not sustainable,plus its ferry passengers are declining at a time when they should be increasing but low fare airlines competition etc.
Irish Ferries' claim that they are headed for the poorhouse is scaremongering. nothing more and nothing less. the company is in a perfect position to continue making a profit.
hardly its the job of a plc to maximise profit not to make a little and be happy,currently profits arent being maximised,the equivalent would be if you were half doing your job but getting full pay,its economically unsustainable



So they get to live on the boat, without access to alternative employment offering better pay in either Ireland, the UK and France. Sounds more like bonded labour to me than a decent job. It is also worth pointing out that because these outsourced workers are not from the countries which Irish ferries serve, employee turnover will be much higher than before, The training costs will no doubt eat into their already decent profits.
no body is forcing them to stay on boat and they are free to leave whenever they like,they get a few free flights home per year and i'd say they have a good time working for good wages(in their view) with fellow young people from former soviet bloc drinking tax and duty free beer when not working as i did when i was working on a cruise ship in carribean

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,

Irish ferries wants to register in Cyprus. a move to do so would be bad for ireland, some examples of the safety record of cypriot transport companies.
link the move wouldnt make them a cypriot company! they would merely be registered there for tax/legal reasons,this is a spurious argument ,the figures relate to indigenous cypriot companies operating in mediteranean



According to the article you quoted above, Viking only operate using estonian workers on their Baltic routes. How many eastern european routes does Irish ferries have? oh yeah, zero. I counted them twice to be sure.the fact its estonian is irrelevant , the relevant fact id that the judge found that a company could locate anywhere in eu to take advantage of favorable law/tax even if jobs would be lost in original country and country of operation



This is still incorrect, we are not taking bugger all from the US treasury as the opening of the Dell EMF plants in Limerick did not affect the size of Dell's plants in Texas.im not talking about dell specifically,read the articles in new york times wall strett journal and irish media recently on anger in america at ireland taking tax revunues and effectively being a tax haven where multinationals locate to lower their tax liabilites, microsoft avoided paying 500million dollars in usa by paying a little amount here ,other scams include shipping parts into ireland and just doing basic assembly here then claiming its and irish made product to qualify for very low tax relative to home country

Not only does the likes of dell pay employers PRSI to the revenue commissioners here ontop of other taxes, but it pays tax on its profits in the US.most US multinationals pay little corporate tax or a lot less than they should if paying the nominal rate of 35% in usa,they use the likes of ireland and other tax havens to avoid the massive profits being taxed in america,this is a fact and can be read about in irish and american media.



If they can afford to pay nearly 15 times the annual industrial wage, then they can afford to pay these workers the same as the Irish workers which are there already.the reason they are paying 300k is that in the long term the savings will be greater than this,this demonstrates the inefficiency of the irish labour and inefficent use of labour is economically an inefficent use of assets, if they could afford to pay the new workers same as irish ones why would they bother with the negative publicity of sacking irish workers,they feel they have to make tough descisions to maximise shareholder value and efficently use their assets. the new workers will come in(as irish feerries are private company and everything they are doing is legal) and irish ferries will prosper,the old workers will find new employment and have a nice lump sum

1

ressem

543 workers * 140 p/week at the new price. (Not sure whether this is before or after agency fees, an average or minimum).

Board of directors' pay will probably be comparable to the entire outsourced workforce. So worth looking at the salary & pension of an Estonian CEO.

As for "the inefficiency of the irish labour" do you meant the cost of employing an Irish person with an onshore dependant?

I think that all our feckless dependentless siblings, willing to work for the price of B&B, are in the Antipodes working at feeding frozen fish to dolphins at the moment.


I find Rothwell's statement of including onship living expenses to give a 'total' higher than the Irish minimum wage ridiculous.

For outsourced workers, about 6 months is spent on board, 6 months off non-contiguous, according to his release in the indo. Won't some form of accomodation in Estonia be required for these off duty stints?

The 300k redundancy is a max. 'significent numbers' will get over 100,000 apparently, which could mean for example less than 10% for all we know. And almost certainly not to the unskilled, inexperienced.


Though on a lighter note ron, did you really favourably compare working on a roro on the irish sea with a cruise ship on the bahamas?

Heard yesterday on the news about an american fast food crowd that outsources the person listening at the drivethrough to a call centre. Efficient, but there goes my employment prospects when I hit my 70s.

Dilly1

Public Sector = "give me a job for life and all the perks", "but dont dare ask me to do any work"


Thats just my experience of the public sector, and the attitude of people I worked with, their attidude was quite scary :eek:

ronbyrne2005

ressem wrote:

543 workers * 140 p/week at the new price. (Not sure whether this is before or after agency fees, an average or minimum).

Board of directors' pay will probably be comparable to the entire outsourced workforce. So worth looking at the salary & pension of an Estonian CEO.

As for "the inefficiency of the irish labour" do you meant the cost of employing an Irish person with an onshore dependant?

I think that all our feckless dependentless siblings, willing to work for the price of B&B, are in the Antipodes working at feeding frozen fish to dolphins at the moment.


I find Rothwell's statement of including onship living expenses to give a 'total' higher than the Irish minimum wage ridiculous.

For outsourced workers, about 6 months is spent on board, 6 months off non-contiguous, according to his release in the indo. Won't some form of accomodation in Estonia be required for these off duty stints?

The 300k redundancy is a max. 'significent numbers' will get over 100,000 apparently, which could mean for example less than 10% for all we know. And almost certainly not to the unskilled, inexperienced.


Though on a lighter note ron, did you really favourably compare working on a roro on the irish sea with a cruise ship on the bahamas?

Heard yesterday on the news about an american fast food crowd that outsources the person listening at the drivethrough to a call centre. Efficient, but there goes my employment prospects when I hit my 70s.

lifes tough ,dog eat dog,get over it and look after yourself,invest in irish ferries and you wont have to work in your 70's

gandalf

Right just to put this into perspective. I work for a distribution company, we import a lot of stock via the UK. This is an email we have gotten from our Vendors re shipments at the moment.

Good afternoon All,

I have received a call from one of our Hauliers. He has been told that Stena Holyhead have instructed Stena Dublin not to take anymore bookings also the trailer that have confirmed bookings will NOT ship tonight as the Port is in chaos. They are threatening to close the port of Holyhead until all trailers that are there are shipped.

I am trying to get any information from Stena but at the moment they are not answering their phones.

I will update you as I hear any more.

This is causing us issues and will cause our customers and theirs issues. The longer this runs on the worse it will get with peoples pay packets being hit at the time of year they need the money the most, and if this drags on any longer jobs will be lost.

The Government have to take the bull by the horns and knock the companies managements and the Unions heads together and resolve this. The insipid response from this government to a very serious issue just proves they are a pack of lame ducks.

Tuars

gandalf wrote:

This is causing us issues and will cause our customers and theirs issues. The longer this runs on the worse it will get with peoples pay packets being hit at the time of year they need the money the most, and if this drags on any longer jobs will be lost.

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

lifes tough ,dog eat dog,get over it and look after yourself...

...

gaf1983

In my opinion the sooner the EU Ferries Directive is passed, offering standardized decent working conditions across the EU, the better.

What has to be avoided now is the race to the bottom, as alluded to by Ahern. This is would appear to be already happening in other sectors, such as the retail one, as this Limerick Post article on the labour practices of one company attests to.

Why should the race to the bottom be avoided? Well experience shows that there are a myriad of reasons - for instance, if you offer workers poor conditions, they tend to become unhappy - and unhappy workers won't be productive, and those that are talented enough to find employment elsewhere will do just that. Also if the poor working conditions involve working for long periods without breaks, this leads to an environment with tired crotchety workers more likely to make mistakes and thereby possibly jeopardise the health and safety of their colleagues, employers and customers.

billy the squid

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

lifes tough ,dog eat dog,get over it and look after yourself,invest in irish ferries and you wont have to work in your 70's

maybe you can put that to music intime for when you put in a claim for your prsi stamps.

Anyway, one thing that needs to be added to the debate. Lack of job security creates, poor consumer spending, which inturn leads to ressession.

ronbyrne2005

billy the squid wrote:

maybe you can put that to music intime for when you put in a claim for your prsi stamps.

Anyway, one thing that needs to be added to the debate. Lack of job security creates, poor consumer spending, which inturn leads to ressession.

lack of job security doesnt seem to affect consumer spending in usa and uk the two most consumer driven economies in the world growing at high rates for last 2 decades since the unions were taken care of by maggie and ronnie

ronbyrne2005

it seems dell will in the next few years move its operations for serving the european market to morroco or poland where costs are so much lower,its inevitable,once the irish plants arent as efficent as the new ones in eastern europe/morroco they will be off! as will all the other multinational manufacturers here. the only things keeping them here is the low low tax rates that this tax haven offers

sunday business post june2005
"Last week, it was announced that AIB was considering moving some of its back-office activities to Poland in a bid to cut costs and improve efficiency within the group. It was also reported that Dell was considering setting up a second manufacturing facility in Poland.

Ireland has been no stranger to the concept of offshoring over recent decades, having received record levels of offshore activity, primarily from the US.

This occurred for a variety of reasons, including our population's proficiency in English, the availability of a highly skilled and highly educated workforce, and our favourable corporate tax structure. This undoubtedly boosted demand for property over the last 20 years, in particular.

However, although offshoring was once practised only by a small group of primarily US-based global corporates, offshoring is now increasingly becoming attractive to a wide range of companies all over the world as they increasingly face global competitive pressures.

It is expected that an increasing number of companies will seek to minimise costs through outsourcing and offshoring over the coming years.

Similarly to AIB, many financial institutions are coming under pressure to offshore their back office functions to reduce costs.

While this has been opposed at a local level, the fact that by replacing 1,000 officials with the same number in a country such as India, a typical bank can save as much as €12 million per annum, is leading many to make offshoring decisions.

India has traditionally been the most attractive destination for offshore operations. Names such as Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore have become synonymous with offshoring, and conjure up images of a labour force that is not only low-cost, but also highly skilled, extremely motivated and fluent in English.

In fact, a large majority of most of the world's offshoring to date has been directed to India or Asian locations such as Manila, Shanghai and Bangkok.

Latin America has also been popular, primarily with US companies. However, in recent years there has been growing interest, largely from western European countries, to offshore, or - perhaps more precisely - offshore business processes to their central and eastern European (CEE) neighbours. Central and eastern European markets are currently among the world's most attractive locations for offshoring.

In Kearney's recent study of the world's top locations for offshoring operations, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary rated in the top 15 global destinations for offshoring.

The three primary factors that most companies consider when deciding where to offshore are the financial structure (including costs of compensation, infrastructure and taxes), the business environment, and the availability of skilled labour.

Obviously, other factors such as the availability and cost of real estate, and the availability and cost of labour are also important.

India, Asia and Latin America will most likely remain the preferred destinations for companies simply looking for a low-cost work force. At approximately €110 per month, the cost of labour in India, for example, is still a lot lower than in CEE markets, where the average monthly wage is €400.

In addition, most Indian and Asian labour markets are simply larger than those in the major cities of CEE.

However, CEE markets are very attractive in terms of providing high-quality business process offshoring for Europe's companies and operations.

Although western European companies have been offshoring certain operations to CEE for the last decade, the issue has recently become a hot topic on the political scene, largely in Germany, France and Britain.

In some quarters in western Europe, the new EU members are viewed as a threat, due to their lower relative wage levels, the low tax rates and the high level of incentives that are being offered to entice investment.

Nevertheless, an increasing number of companies are finding that offshoring to central and eastern Europe is helping them to stay competitive in today's global market.

Offshoring or outsourcing some business operations will help western European companies to remain competitive with global players from the US, Asia and elsewhere. For the savvy director, who is responsible for the bottom line, the attraction of offshoring can be very strong indeed.

Although the offshoring trend cannot be described as a sudden boom, it can certainly be termed a steady increase.

On the real estate side, property markets in CEE are quickly maturing and expanding. Currently, the CEE markets are among the fastest growing in Europe. With just over 6 million square metres of modern office space in the four main central European markets - Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw - the markets are indeed much smaller than those found in capital cities in western Europe.

However, the markets have evolved almost overnight, from having virtually no modern office stock 12 years ago, to their present state.

Although office development has now slowed there, it is just picking up further east in markets such as Bucharest, Sofia and the Baltic states.

The office market is booming in Moscow, which currently has more than 4 million square metres of modern office space.

With the exception of some of the markets further east, there is currently no shortage of good quality space in the major CEE markets. In fact, the situation in most markets can currently be described as a tenant's market.

The state of the property market in CEE has been positive for companies that are now locating to the region, especially for the larger offshoring requirements. In addition to lower occupancy costs relative to western Europe, most tenants who are properly represented can achieve very attractive incentives from the landlords, such as fit-out contributions and a certain period rent-free.

Also, offshoring operations are usually not looking for prime space in each market, and therefore pay lower rents in more periphery locations.

In summary, in order to remain competitive in today's global market, an increasing number of firms are considering offshoring or outsourcing some of their business processes, thus cutting costs and increasing effectiveness and revenues. Therefore, it is no surprise that AIB is now considering offshoring.

Although India and Asia have been important destinations for US and British companies, CEE offers western European firms many advantages that competitors in India, Asia or Latin America cannot.

Examples of these advantages are the knowledge of European languages, cultural traits, and the locational advantage of being in the same time zone and only a short trip away from western Europe.

We anticipate a marked increase in the amount of offshoring interest from western Europe to CEE, as companies take advantage of lower costs, the highly skilled and low-cost labour market, the cultural and language skills, favorable business environments and lower relative real estate costs.

The companies that have already taken advantage of these factors in the CEE markets have noted significant success. Their success will continue to drive other western European competitors to pursue offshore opportunities in CEE.

However, despite the emerging trends, it is anticipated that Ireland will continue to attract foreign direct investment, on the basis that its pool of educated workforce and favourable tax structures continue to offer significant competitive advantage.

The fact that Ireland is still the only eurozone country that is primarily English-speaking also helps.

However, there is a general acceptance that, at current wage levels and real estate values, this investment is likely to be largely service-based, and that the manufacturing sector in Ireland will continue to decline significantly in the short"

billy the squid

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

lack of job security doesnt seem to affect consumer spending in usa and uk the two most consumer driven economies in the world growing at high rates for last 2 decades since the unions were taken care of by maggie and ronnie

First come the job security issues
http://www.employersjobs.com/news.asp?id=15093896
Then come the consumer confidence issues
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2005/11/30/afx2359948.html
and resession
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1559154.stm

you still havent stated whether or not you will be singing the same tune when you find your own position "outsourced"

AARRRGH

This topic is full of incredible misinformation... It's embarrassing TBH

billy the squid

dublindude wrote:

This topic is full of incredible misinformation... It's embarrassing TBH

enlighten us, o knowledgeable one!

rossious

Just my point of view but…….

If a SIPTU worker was going to the UK would they book with Stenaline or for £15 cheaper, Irish Ferries?

Would SIPTU workers like to pay more for their goods dues to haulage costs??

Trade Unions and people in general have to realise that you cannot get cheap goods without the business providing those goods being able to having cheap labour.

“Oh isn’t Ireland terrible now” is all I hear when I come home. “Oh isn’t everything so expensive”. Yea it is, and I blame Trade Unions for forcing up wages in the country which drives up the cost of everything. Let markets work them selves out.