Thousands of retail workers are struggling to make ends meet because they cannot get full-time contracts even when they routinely work a great deal of overtime, a trade union has said.
Mandate, the union for retail, bar and administrative workers, wants the law changed so that staff are entitled to contracts that better reflect the number of hours they really work and for additional hours that become available to be offered to existing workers before new employees are hired.
Citing recent Central Statistics Office figures, the union’s assistant general secretary, Jim Fuery, says those currently working in the sector, including managers, earn an average of €553.08 per week. That is half the average weekly industrial wage of €1,074.61 and below what is regarded as the “living wage” of €601 per week.
He says a major contributor to the problem is the steady transformation of the retail sector over the past three decades from one based around full-time work and careers to part-time work and, increasingly, short-term employment.
READ MORE
He said 75 per cent of the union’s members are on part-time contracts but nearly half of those, 40 per cent, want to work more hours.
Under the current legislation they have the right to request more hours but there is no obligation for employers to grant them and many prefer to maintain a larger number of part-time staff.
Union members tell of being declined additional hours when trying to save for a mortgage or, in one case, having their hours substantially cut after asking for a full-time contract after a prolonged period of effectively working full time.
One worker said she was contracted to work between 10 and 15 hours a week at a major supermarket but spent 15 months working full-time hours on an ad-hoc basis. When she became more certain of her availability due to her daughter starting at a homework club, she sought a full-time contract. However, she was offered a contract for only 20-25 hours, well short of what she continued to actually do.
Working in excess of contracted hours, Fuery says, is commonplace in the sector but employers prefer not to regularise the situation as it provides them with added flexibility.
The result, previous research by the union suggested, is that just a fifth of workers in the sector earn more than the living wage – the amount it is estimated an adult with dependents needs to earn in order to afford “a socially acceptable standard of living”.
“Ultimately, the key to retail workers increasing their hours of work and their weekly earnings is transferring the onus of responsibility from workers having to request an increase in working hours – with the outcome dependent on the employers’ whim – to employers being obliged to offer higher contracted hours based on existing work patterns,” says Fuery. “Such a shift in legal responsibility could have a hugely positive effect for tens of thousands of low-paid retail workers.”
Separately, research published on Tuesday by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) suggests that even with being able to work full-time, about half of the 74,000 part-time workers currently estimated to be at risk of poverty would not escape the category due to low rates of pay, dependents or the absence of a second wage earner in the household.
“Increasing working hours can make a meaningful difference for some low-income workers, but it is not always an option. Many workers would remain below the poverty line even at full-time hours, highlighting the importance of in-work supports such as the working family payment,” said Dr Karina Doorley, associate research professor at the ESRI. Only about half of eligible households currently take up their entitlement to the payment, which is a weekly, tax-free social welfare payment designed to support employees with children who are on low incomes.
