Responding to the news that progress to a living wage is to be paused indefinitely, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has roundly condemned the decision.
General Secretary Owen Reidy said: “The ink is not yet dry on yesterday’s so-called ‘workers’ budget’, and the Government is out today breaking their living wage promise to the country’s lowest paid workers. To add insult to injury, this decision is solely the result of Government cowing to intense lobbying from business interest groups.
“Government has clearly learned nothing from their 9% VAT own goal in last year’s budget. This decision is not backed by any evidence and is an untargeted subsidy to every minimum and sub-minimum wage employer whether they are big or small, profitable or struggling. In fact, many are the very same businesses and chains that are benefiting from the VAT cut. It makes a mockery of the idea of a ‘worker’s budget’”.
Social policy officer Laura Bambrick said “Increases in the minimum wage have occurred without strong evidence of significant consequences for total employment and inflation. The decision to pause progress to the living wage indefinitely will directly hit one in ten of all employees in the pocket. Around a quarter of a million people work for the minimum wage or sub-minimum wage. A full-time minimum wage worker is already set to be down a cumulative €1,500 over this year and next because of an earlier decision to delay the introduction of the living wage from January this year to 2029. These workers and the public purse are picking up a hefty tab to subsidise low paid employment.
"Big and small employer representatives, along with trade unions and independent experts, have a seat on the Low Pay Commission. They are part of the lengthy process each year in making an evidence-informed recommendation on the appropriate minimum wage rate. Not having the evidence to back up their want for a much-reduced increase to the minimum wage next year, those employers turned to the Minister for Enterprise, who obliged them at the expense of the lowest paid workers in the country”.
