The general secretary of Mandate, Mr Owen Nulty, says the income increase for shop assistants of 32 per cent over the past decade, compared to the national average of 56 per cent, indicates that national pay agreements are failing to stem the growing gap between low-paid sectors of the workforce and other sectors, writes Padraig Yeates.
Mr Nulty wants workers earning less than £200 a week to be exempted from income tax and PRSI deductions in the next Budget. "People on low pay are falling further and further behind," he told a meeting of the union's officers in Dublin yesterday. He said that the Budget had to address this problem if there was to be a successor to Partnership 2000.
He said shop assistants and other low-paid workers saw their aspirations to home ownership being dashed, their real income barely remaining static and the quality of their working lives being diminished while at the same time more powerful and well-positioned groups had fared much better.
Mr Nulty said average profits rose 18 per cent last year. "Unless future national agreements are heavily weighted towards low-paid workers, Mandate will campaign for a return to free collective bargaining."
The union is the second largest private-sector union in the Republic.