Research Shows 66% of Retail Workers Are Earning Less than €451 Per Week
Dr Conor McCabe, Research Fellow at Queen’s Management School, was commissioned by Mandate Trade Union to research retail workers’ incomes in Ireland, in order to understand the current picture and to plan for the future.
The report, called ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, found that nearly two-thirds of retail workers earn less than €451 per week. When surveyed previously in July 2022, just one fifth (21%) were earning more than the weekly Living Wage, which was €502 at the time.
Based on the comprehensive research carried out by Dr Conor McCabe, Mandate Trade Union are now calling for a cost-of-living wage to be introduced, amongst other key recommendations.
The biggest challenge in terms of decent incomes shown in the report is the number of hours worked in the retail sector. The research shows that the number of retail enterprises has fallen since 2008, but the number of employees has risen.
Whilst hourly rates have improved over the years, this has not been fully reflected in weekly earnings because of the relatively low number of hours being worked by retail workers. Retail has the fifth-lowest average working week of all the employment sectors.
The union is now calling for legislative change to enable workers to work more than their ‘banded-hours’ contracts where extra working hours are available.
Researcher Dr Conor McCabe says:
“The survey shows that 75% of the respondents were on a banded-hours contract and, of this cohort, over 50% were on a contract of 31 hours or more a week. A significant number of these workers, 40%, would like to work more than their banded hours. While some do get that opportunity, many do not due to a mix of management intransigence and caring responsibilities."
Key Recommendations from Smoke and Mirrors report:
- Introduce a Cost-of-Living wage of at least €14 per hour (according to 2022 rates) to replace the national minimum wage.
- Abolish sub-minimum rates for wages that apply to younger workers.
- Declare a housing emergency and implement key Raise the Roof policies.
- Reduce childcare fees by 50% and move towards universal childcare.
- Legislate to allow workers to increase their working hours where hours are available, to decrease arbitrary rostering and weekly unpredictability.
- Legislate for trade unions to have shopfloor access to meet with members and workers, rather than access being at the discretion of the employer.
- Give members of trade unions the right to be heard, by ensuring unions are recognised by employers for collective bargaining purposes.
- Amend the 1990 Industrial Relations Act by removing the bar on collective industrial action for individual members.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment have said they would give the report due consideration in the context of existing legislative protections.
