SMALL business associations are attempting to "subvert" the implementation of a legal minimum wage, according to trade union leaders and the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI).
The SIPTU president, Mr Jimmy Somers, claimed yesterday the Small Firms Association was "scaremongering about job losses".
The assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), Ms Patricia O'Donovan, said employers who paid decent wages had nothing to fear from new wage regulations.
The director of the NYCI, Mr Peter Byrne, described the objections of the Small Firms Association as "off the wall". He said Irish competitiveness should not be built on the exploitation of young workers.
Rejecting claims by the SFA and the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) that the introduction of a minimum wage would cause job losses, Mr Somers said: "This has not happened in most European countries where a legal minimum wage is the norm".
He said with Britain now considering the introduction of a minimum wage, "genuine fears about competitiveness will be allayed".
He reminded the SFA that under the terms of Partnership 2000, employers were committed to a review of joint labour committees. (These are the statutory bodies which draw up minimum wages in low-pay sectors, such catering, cleaning and textiles. Unions and employers are jointly represented.)
"It is obvious that in a booming economy those at the lowest pay levels, mainly women and young children, must be provided for adequately," Mr Somers said.
He welcomed the commitment by the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, to introduce a minimum wage and said SIPTU would not countenance any attempt by employers "to back away from their commitments to greater equity, a concept that permeates Partnership 2000".
"The key issue is to ensure that all workers benefit in the present boom, and if that means special measures to ensure those on the lowest pay have a minimum income which permits them to pay their bills, then it has to happen."
Ms O'Donovan said the proposal in the Fianna Fail/PDs Programme for Government to introduce a national minimum hourly wage would help to tackle poverty. Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute and the Combat Poverty Agency showed low pay to be a major cause of poverty.
She said low pay was rampant in many sectors of the Irish economy, especially shops, pubs, restaurants and hotels.
It was time for employers who paid wages of £2 or £3 an hour to reassess their, approach. Long-term competitiveness could not be built on a short sighted strategy of low pay and bad conditions.
Mr Byrne said: "Both the US and France, two of the biggest economies in the world, have a statutory minimum wage."