Employers race to the bottom

hurler32

Everyday im seeing young people in particular who are getting work on ..on temporary contracts , wages are minimum wage, no rights of sick leave not to mention proper holidays or pension. Everything is statutory ie bare minimum.
So the rich Employers, Owners etc get even richer and richer whilst many of the youth or not so young live from hand to mouth each month scavenging in Lidl for specials to survive ...its probably worse outside the Dublin belt where employers can basically pay what they want and treat their staff(Serfs) like sh1t...
Is this the Ireland we want for our sons and daughters?..I understand some smaller operations are operating on tight budgets but theres plenty of companies making huge profits but want to pay their staff minimum minimum whilst the rich get richer...

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Totally agree. Hard won workers' rights seem to be getting lost at an alarming rate. Contracts, unpaid internships, zero hour agreements, not to mention the increasing practise of employees regularly working far more than their contracted hours have really seen the world of work slip backwards.

The notion of a 9-5 job is sneered at by a lot of people nowadays, but at least it gave people a proper work/life balance, security and rights.

whisky_galore

Welcome to the gig economy lads.

jimgoose

Liam Clean Wench wrote: »

...The notion of a 9-5 job is sneered at by a lot of people nowadays...

Is it? Who are these people? Youngsters working as Content Creators in their parents' attics??

jimgoose

whisky_galore wrote: »

Welcome to the gig economy lads.

...which is code for ducking PRSI and paid vacations and so on via clever-clogs reduced-hours contracts. Watch out for this mickeybollocks "self-employment" carry-on to spread from the building sites into more fields, retail, service etc.

Permabear

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CrankyHaus

jimgoose wrote: »

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Yes, a crackdown on this is needed and the failure to curtail its growth in the last decade indicates an official attitude of "no harm done, turn a blind eye".


Incidentally I am finding that more and more employers have difficulty getting staff, or at least good staff. This does seem to be changing attitudes and pushing remuneration upwards but it seems bad habits learned during the recession die hard for many employers and HR people.

Permabear wrote: »

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Very true. A lot of SMEs are under pressure. I think we should ask why?
Costs of living and doing business in Ireland seem to be pushed up in a manner that benefits vested interests and acts as a private tax on economic activity while contributing little in return. High rents is one example (and clearly state policies contribute to high rents). High Insurance premiums is another (again it's clear that one of the most generous compensation systems in the EU, if not the world, contributes to this).

jimgoose

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

They're not looking for everything under the sun. They're looking for a week's work for a week's pay, and proper social security. In other words, an actual job. It seems to me a lot of businesses are simply not viable if the only way they can employ people is this "gig economy" horseshit.

hurler32

Look at building sites in Dublin, gone are the days of Dublin, Wicklow,etc men earning a decent wage rearing a family in what was a traditional working class Housing estate or village...those men have been replaced by Romanian,Albanian or illegal North Africans who are sleeping four or five to a room on floorboards hoping to send home a few quid out of their minimum wage to their barefoot family on a hillside in Albania...meanwhile the Dublin Building companys owners are picking out 182 Landcruisers for their bosses....

Donald Trump

Everything is about Race these days

PC gone mad

seamus

A side-effect of being an "open economy" as we hear so often touted is that a huge chunk of our workforce are engaging in work for US multinationals.

These multinationals bring their US employment ethics with them - i.e. treat your employees as slaves - and apply them as much as possible within the confines of Irish employment law.

This has a side-effect of non-US companies seeing what employees will put up with, and reducing their standards to meet.

20 years ago one could expect that a good professional job would come with at least VHI, pension, stocks and maybe even a company car.

That's all gone now, you'll get stock options if you're lucky, and maybe 25 days holidays instead of 20.

Of course, tax policy plays a part too - companies didn't hand out pensions, stocks and cars because they wanted to be nice. They did it because it was cheaper than paying the cash equivalent. That was removed by FF in the early 2000s.

The problem is that while wages rose to offset the loss of these benefits in kind, when the crash came the wages tumbled, but the benefits didn't come back.

hurler32

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Some, yes are running tight operations and that's fair enough but plenty are doing extremely well and have more money than they could possible ever need while their staff are going round hungry...

Caliden

Welcome to the beast that is capitalism.

It works great when people have morals, the desire to better society and greed doesn't take over.

JMNolan

You'd have to wonder what the trade union movement is up to these days? Seems to have died out to be honest.

Red_Wake

It entirely depends on your sector and qualifications. I get pension, health insurance, plenty of annual leave, etc. I'm in the IT industry where there's a massive shortage of qualified workers, so employers have to give good benefits to attract decent workers, never mind the best ones.

Go down the economic chain a few rungs, to say semi skilled[need a degree, but more to show you've some level of brains rather than a specific qualification] production line worker in a factory[a mate of mine is doing this]. The conditions and pay[well above minimum I'd say] are decent[no insurance or pension afaik] but due to the contract nature, it's quite easy to get rid of someone and due to the semi skilled nature of the job, quite a large pool of labour to employ from. As such there's not much incentive on the employer to improve pay/conditions to retain staff as for the level of skill they require, they're already very competitive.

Go down another few levels to the crowd stacking shelves in Dunne's/Tesco. No degree needed, and realistically the lads who were too slow for the remedial classes in school can do it as well as a fella with a PhD in Theoretical Physics. These guys tend have little in the ways of employment options, and the work they do can be done by anyone. It's never gonna command much in the ways of benefits as there's never going to be a shortage of potential bodies.

Tbf, the last group are the ones who tend to lose out first. At the same time, their equivalents a hundred years ago were much worse off, and it should be acknowledged that they tend to be the ones employment legislation protects the most due to their inherent vulnerability.

hurler32

JMNolan wrote: »

You'd have to wonder what the trade union movement is up to these days? Seems to have died out to be honest.

The Media have played a subtle part too backed by their vested Interested owners Denis o Brien etc..The INDO Rte etc brainwashing the public with Anti Union stories ...creating the environment for the same public to be paid peanuts....

c68zapdsm5i1ru

JMNolan wrote: »

You'd have to wonder what the trade union movement is up to these days? Seems to have died out to be honest.

Yes, I think a lot of younger people in particular are just not interested in joining their union anymore. It seems to be part of this mindset that only losers leave the office at 5.30, want a job for life, security etc that some people seem to have been brainwashed into believing.

I also hate the way some companies offer stuff like mindfulness classes, wellness rooms etc while totally exploiting their staff in every other way.

whisky_galore

Red_Wake wrote: »

Tbf, the last group are the ones who tend to lose out first. At the same time, their equivalents a hundred years ago were much worse off, and it should be acknowledged that they tend to be the ones employment legislation protects the most due to their inherent vulnerability.

'Shop assistants' as they called them then, wouldn't have been too badly off 100 years ago compared to others down the pecking order, would have been considered a white collar job.

Permabear

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Permabear

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CrankyHaus

hurler32 wrote: »

The Media have played a subtle part too backed by their vested Interested owners Denis o Brien etc..The INDO Rte etc brainwashing the public with Anti Union stories ...creating the environment for the same public to be paid peanuts....

No fabrication of anti-union stories required, they do a grand job supplying them themselves.



Union bosses chased all that sweet social partnership and benchamrking lucre during the Tiger in return for supporting FF as they drove the country off a cliff; more or less abandoned private sector workers; sold out young entrants to the public sector to keep the gravy train going for the older ones; and at this stage only represent a Labour Aristocracy that taxes normal working people heavily to maintain its standard of living while providing poor public services in return.



It's hardly surprising that young people don't put their trust in the Unions.

weisses

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

If you cannot afford to pay staff a fair and reasonable living wage you shouldn't be in business at all

professore

Red_Wake wrote: »

It entirely depends on your sector and qualifications. I get pension, health insurance, plenty of annual leave, etc. I'm in the IT industry where there's a massive shortage of qualified workers, so employers have to give good benefits to attract decent workers, never mind the best ones.

Go down the economic chain a few rungs, to say semi skilled[need a degree, but more to show you've some level of brains rather than a specific qualification] production line worker in a factory[a mate of mine is doing this]. The conditions and pay[well above minimum I'd say] are decent[no insurance or pension afaik] but due to the contract nature, it's quite easy to get rid of someone and due to the semi skilled nature of the job, quite a large pool of labour to employ from. As such there's not much incentive on the employer to improve pay/conditions to retain staff as for the level of skill they require, they're already very competitive.

Go down another few levels to the crowd stacking shelves in Dunne's/Tesco. No degree needed, and realistically the lads who were too slow for the remedial classes in school can do it as well as a fella with a PhD in Theoretical Physics. These guys tend have little in the ways of employment options, and the work they do can be done by anyone. It's never gonna command much in the ways of benefits as there's never going to be a shortage of potential bodies.

Tbf, the last group are the ones who tend to lose out first. At the same time, their equivalents a hundred years ago were much worse off, and it should be acknowledged that they tend to be the ones employment legislation protects the most due to their inherent vulnerability.

This last group think nothing of spending €1000 on the latest iPhone when they can get a perfectly decent Android under €200.

Skobey_brady

hurler32 wrote: »

The Media have played a subtle part too backed by their vested Interested owners Denis o Brien etc..The INDO Rte etc brainwashing the public with Anti Union stories ...creating the environment for the same public to be paid peanuts....

RTE are extremely pro union and pro public sector union in particular, I think unions are important but describing rte as anti union is just plain silly

Blazer

seamus wrote: »

A side-effect of being an "open economy" as we hear so often touted is that a huge chunk of our workforce are engaging in work for US multinationals.

These multinationals bring their US employment ethics with them - i.e. treat your employees as slaves - and apply them as much as possible within the confines of Irish employment law.

This has a side-effect of non-US companies seeing what employees will put up with, and reducing their standards to meet.

20 years ago one could expect that a good professional job would come with at least VHI, pension, stocks and maybe even a company car.

That's all gone now, you'll get stock options if you're lucky, and maybe 25 days holidays instead of 20.

Of course, tax policy plays a part too - companies didn't hand out pensions, stocks and cars because they wanted to be nice. They did it because it was cheaper than paying the cash equivalent. That was removed by FF in the early 2000s.

The problem is that while wages rose to offset the loss of these benefits in kind, when the crash came the wages tumbled, but the benefits didn't come back.

I’m calling bull**** on that.
I worked for a US multinational and left in 2014 to work for another. Both companies treated their employees excellently and I got a payrise every year even in the middle of the recession.
For me and any other of these employees we didn’t have a recession.
Same for the company I moved to in 2014. They were paying their staff fantastic rates and giving them cheap stock options.
Even their hirimg manager told me there was no recession for them.

DrumSteve

professore wrote: »

This last group think nothing of spending €1000 on the latest iPhone when they can get a perfectly decent Android under €200.

Really?

All of them?

Bare in mind, I know people who do these jobs and they have actually got 200e android phones.

Hector Savage

Red_Wake wrote: »

It entirely depends on your sector and qualifications. I get pension, health insurance, plenty of annual leave, etc. I'm in the IT industry where there's a massive shortage of qualified workers, so employers have to give good benefits to attract decent workers, never mind the best ones.

Go down the economic chain a few rungs, to say semi skilled[need a degree, but more to show you've some level of brains rather than a specific qualification] production line worker in a factory[a mate of mine is doing this]. The conditions and pay[well above minimum I'd say] are decent[no insurance or pension afaik] but due to the contract nature, it's quite easy to get rid of someone and due to the semi skilled nature of the job, quite a large pool of labour to employ from. As such there's not much incentive on the employer to improve pay/conditions to retain staff as for the level of skill they require, they're already very competitive.

Go down another few levels to the crowd stacking shelves in Dunne's/Tesco. No degree needed, and realistically the lads who were too slow for the remedial classes in school can do it as well as a fella with a PhD in Theoretical Physics. These guys tend have little in the ways of employment options, and the work they do can be done by anyone. It's never gonna command much in the ways of benefits as there's never going to be a shortage of potential bodies.

Tbf, the last group are the ones who tend to lose out first. At the same time, their equivalents a hundred years ago were much worse off, and it should be acknowledged that they tend to be the ones employment legislation protects the most due to their inherent vulnerability.

This will shift though, eventually you'll have extremely skilled workers just barely getting by as the elite positions get smaller and smaller ..

VinLieger

Blazer wrote: »

I’m calling bull**** on that.
I worked for a US multinational and left in 2014 to work for another. Both companies treated their employees excellently and I got a payrise every year even in the middle of the recession.
For me and any other of these employees we didn’t have a recession.
Same for the company I moved to in 2014. They were paying their staff fantastic rates and given me them cheap stock options.
Even their hirImg manager told me there was no recession for them.

Agreed, working for US multinationals is nothing like what that poster described, i work for one where we get more benefits than i could ever dream of working for an irish company.

I know many people who work for other US multinationals and this is the norm, one behaving like the poster described would be a complete exception and indicate larger issues with the company

Permabear

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awec

JMNolan wrote: »

You'd have to wonder what the trade union movement is up to these days? Seems to have died out to be honest.

THey're busy making sure civil servants don't have to work 37 hours a week.

Permabear

Permabear wrote: »

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We can blame alot of other businesses for that. The culture of late payments among alot of them is scandalous.

Permabear

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Shenshen

whisky_galore wrote: »

'Shop assistants' as they called them then, wouldn't have been too badly off 100 years ago compared to others down the pecking order, would have been considered a white collar job.

And 50 years ago, due to the fact that the "blue collar" guys were the ones with the unions, the shop keepers started to lose out and dropped in the pecking order.

Unions only work in scenarios where very, very few employers employ very, very many employees, like in large factories or possibly across large chain stores. They absolutely shine in areas where the employer has the monopoly on the market, such as in railways and public transport. These employers can easily be threatened, as union actions will have immediate and direct impact on them.

How do you roll that model out to today's scenario, where there are few enough monopolies left (public transport seemingly being the last remnant), and far fewer employers with operations large enough in one country to be vulnerable to something like a strike?

Unions, to keep being relevant, need a new toolkit.
What worked 50 years ago is NOT working any more, and the reason people have no interest in them any more and won't join them is because in most fields of employment, they've become as impactful and relevant as a cold cup of tea.

whisky_galore

Deleted User wrote: »

We can blame alot of other businesses for that. The culture of late payments among alot of them is scandalous.

I think it's a lot to do with cute hoorism and general lack-a-daisical attitude here, trying to get away with things for as long as you can.

ifElseThen

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Business survival should not be at the cost of worker's conditions. This is just wealth transference.

Also, Migrant labour = richer business owners

I see it in my industry, IT. Am a development lead in our place, almost all our hires have been non-nationals at reduced rates to what we'd pay an Irish person. Expected wage rate was mostly the determining factor.

Business growth and profit margins should not come at the expense of worker's conditions.

Shenshen

ifElseThen wrote: »

Business survival should not be at the cost of worker's conditions. This is just wealth transference.

Also, Migrant labour = richer business owners

I see it in my industry, IT. Am a development lead in our place, almost all our hires have been non-nationals at reduced rates to what we'd pay an Irish person. Expected wage rate was mostly the determining factor.

Business growth and profit margins should not come at the expense of worker's conditions.

Well, now that it's becoming harder not to pay women less money, someone has to take the hit, I suppose.

IT in particular is very location-agnostic. I'd credit your employer for hiring in Ireland at all, and not in Slovakia, or even further afield.

Permabear

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Birneybau

awec wrote: »

THey're busy making sure civil servants don't have to work 37 hours a week.

Always back to this. Divide and conquer...

Padraig Mor

weisses wrote: »

If you cannot afford to pay staff a fair and reasonable living wage you shouldn't be in business at all

I remember my brother, a (very) small business owner ended up on some lefty list of "parasite employers" because he took on someone through Jobsbridge. Yet at the time, he was borrowing money from family just to keep the lights on! He also kept the employee on after their Jobsbridge contract finished. But, hey, greedy business owners etc.....

bilbot79

No rich employers = no jobs

weisses

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes ... If you cannot pay your staff a wage that prevents them from struggling as well then you are probably not viable as a buiseness

Permabear wrote: »

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Businesses going belly up? ... nothing new here, Employee goes on JSB and starts looking for a new job, Hopefully one that actually pays them properly.

of course a business can go through a rough patch and they even can discuss wage options with employees to help them through ... But that should be temporary

Red_Wake

ifElseThen wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Business survival should not be at the cost of worker's conditions. This is just wealth transference.

Also, Migrant labour = richer business owners

I see it in my industry, IT. Am a development lead in our place, almost all our hires have been non-nationals at reduced rates to what we'd pay an Irish person. Expected wage rate was mostly the determining factor.

Business growth and profit margins should not come at the expense of worker's conditions.[/quote]
Out of curiosity, what sort of place do you work?Is it a startup, SME or MNC? 

I can see how this would occur in a startup, but any place with a competent HR department would be wary of the effects of underpaying employees on staff turnover, especially in today's IT sector - do ye have much turnover?

How are the rest of the working conditions, and, if you find them so unacceptable, have you looked at other employers?

weisses

Padraig Mor wrote: »

I remember my brother, a (very) small business owner ended up on some lefty list of "parasite employers" because he took on someone through Jobsbridge. Yet at the time, he was borrowing money from family just to keep the lights on! He also kept the employee on after their Jobsbridge contract finished. But, hey, greedy business owners etc.....

I am not talking about greedy business owners

I am saying fair and reasonable living wage ... If you cannot pay that to someone working for you then imo that person is in the wrong trade

hurler32

Permabear wrote: »

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Panda bins be a good example, zero Irish staff and I've heard reports of them taking stuff out of bins to eat .. ... looking at a few staff in Tesco stacking shelfs yesterday evening , looked as if they hadn't a bob between them .. no doubt on some minimum wage contract ....

seamus

hurler32 wrote: »

Panda bins be a good example, zero Irish staff and I've heard reports of them taking stuff out of bins to eat .. ... looking at a few staff in Tesco stacking shelfs yesterday evening , looked as if they hadn't a bob between them .. no doubt on some minimum wage contract ....

"Looked as if they hadn't a bob between them". Were they stacking shelves in their bare feet and wearing rags?

Binmen taking stuff out of bins to eat. Such horsesh1t. Do you spend much time thinking about the most ridiculous stuff to say?

Neon_Lights

Well maybe we continually present our anuses to be continually ****ed by corporate cocks. So technically we only have ourselves to blame.

Permabear

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4068ac1elhodqr

When even MDH expreses concern at the new gig economy, it's time to get worried:

draiochtanois

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weisses

Permabear wrote: »

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Why are you moving goalposts to make your argument ?

Minimum wage is not a goal .. Its the bare minimum you are have to pay ... Living wage is at 11.70 an hour

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I was not suggesting this,

Imagine an employee on a living wage is responsible for a business going belly up ..... :rolleyes: Business owner must be having a gambling problem

Ipso

Neon_Lights wrote: »

Well maybe we continually present our anuses to be continually ****ed by corporate cocks. So technically we only have ourselves to blame.

At the next electio around 25% of the electorate will vote for the party that bankrupted the countey 10 years ago.
Since around 2000 the cost of living started to increase massively, but yet people lost the plit over s few hundred a year for water charges.