Mandate says net pay for retail workers fell €109 a week

THE TRADE union representing retail workers has said members saw their take-home pay fall by €109 a week on average over the last year. Mandate says falling wages for retail workers are due mainly to reductions in working hours.

However, it maintained that since the removal of the joint labour committee system for setting wages last year, premium rates paid for Sunday working had in some cases been significantly reduced by employers.

Mandate general secretary John Douglas said the union had received reports from members advising that where they would have got time and a third as a Sunday premium previously, they were now being offered as little as €1 extra an hour.

The union said the survey finding of an average fall in take-home pay of €109 a week had to be seen in the context of Central Statistics Office data for the first quarter of 2010, which showed average weekly pay for clerical, sales and service workers in the sector was just more than €360 a week.

Mandate said the survey, carried out by Behaviour and Attitudes, had found a majority of members were employed on part-time contracts and were working an average of just 22 hours a week.

However, it said for half of its members, these working hours were spread over at least five days.

It said working hours were also subject to frequent changes and that almost half of part-time workers had their working hours changed at least once a month.

Research and policy analyst Camille Loftus said the level of flexibility being sought by employers meant that staff were not available to take up other jobs and were also disqualified for social welfare supports.

The survey report said six in 10 Mandate members were willing and able to work extra hours, “yet over half of those who wanted to work more hours actually had their hours cut over the last year”.

Mandate also maintained that retail employers appeared to be “shifting the balance of employment towards lower-paid and less-experienced staff”. While fewer than half of the part-time employees who asked for more hours of work got them, two-thirds of student workers who requested additional hours had received them.

The report also found that a third of Mandate members were finding it difficult to adequately feed and clothe their families and pay off household loans.