Irish ferries dispute/flags of convenince/low wages/ and the Nice treaty etc

Victor

Hibernian2005 wrote:

They seem contradictory.

Hardly, they welcome immigrants, subject to everyone being paid the appropriate wages.

Hibernian2005

Victor wrote:

Hardly, they welcome immigrants, subject to everyone being paid the appropriate wages.

But you have to know how doing one is incompatible with the other in the real world. The more immigrants you bring in, the harder it is to pinpoint cases of exploitation. Also, many immigrants are fearful of blowing the whistle. They are perfectly willing to work for less than Irish people because we earn about 20 times what they would have at home on average. In particular, note the GDP per capita of Lithuania at around $2,000.

IF is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. The truth has been revealed as to why employers are always ranting on about their "need for immigrant labour". If we really do need immigrant labour then we can start by offering the jobs to Irish emigrants who will work for a fair rate, as they would have to be to be enticed back to Ireland.

BuffyBot

If the workers had guts, they would scuttle the ships. But then "they" would be the baddies.

Yes, they would. Not really that hard to differeniate between "good things to do", "questionable things to do" and "very bad things to do", is it?

I hope No-one ever again uses Irish Ferries and the government sets-up a new National Ferry service owned by the people for the people.

Yeah, because B&I worked out so well. And that was before the days of low-cost air travel.

I hope the people pickets their offices too. Bonded labour has no place in Ireland. and one of the main reasons for all this is Michael O'Leary, If the people went so tight and Ryanair never were successful Low-Fares would never have come about. But them shot of cowboys will soon get their comeuppance when one of their planes crash, Have anyone ever read of their dismal maintenance and safety record? Do a Google search or here on boards. Low-fares should never come about at the expense of the worker or the customers service.

Do you believe everything you read on the interwebnet? Because, you really, really shouldn't.

Hibernian2005

I hope No-one ever again uses Irish Ferries and the government sets-up a new National Ferry service owned by the people for the people.

I agree that we should boycott them. But a state-owned ferry service is not the answer. The answer is a combination of the abortive EU Ferries Directive being returned for Council of Ministers' consideration (our government blocked it), tough enforcement of labour laws (including a vast increase in the pathetic number of inspectors - 31 is not enough), and tighter controls on legal immigration from poor countries where the labour coming in is willing to work for vastly less than Irish people.

This is not just going on in IF. It is also widespread in the construction industry. Use your ears when passing a construction site and you'll soon realise that.

Bloodychancer

Hibernian2005 wrote:

I agree that we should boycott them. But a state-owned ferry service is not the answer. The answer is a combination of the abortive EU Ferries Directive being returned for Council of Ministers' consideration (our government blocked it), tough enforcement of labour laws (including a vast increase in the pathetic number of inspectors - 31 is not enough), and tighter controls on legal immigration from poor countries where the labour coming in is willing to work for vastly less than Irish people.

This is not just going on in IF. It is also widespread in the construction industry. Use your ears when passing a construction site and you'll soon realise that.

This is exactly the reason why Irish Ferries or any company should not indulge in exploiting immigrants because it plays into the hands of people like yourself

The Fact is that most of the immigrants including apparently the people Irish Ferries are trying to exploit are from other EU countries and have a right to be here
Admittedly most other EU countries will not allow the people from the most recent states to join to work in their own countries the Irish Government took a different tack. I have no problem with people coming to this country as long as they are treated the same as every other worker.
It is not the immigrants fault that they are being exploited by greedy bastards like IF it is the Governments fault for not protecting all workers an example of which is the laughably small number of Labour Inspectors.
Of course none of this is a surprise as the PD tail that wags the FF dog never had any interest in the welfare of New entrant potential migrants the only reason that they allowed these people in was to provide cheap labour to their friends in Big business.

Bloodychancer

Cork wrote:

I agree. We saw it this week with the Irish suger beet farmers being sold out.

The Irish economy is uncompetitive. The cost base in this country is high.

It is going well on the back of borrowing and the construction industry.

We live in a global economy where companies can easily up root and move on.

well if Irish Ferries were interested in lowering the " Cost Base" a good place to start would be the CEO who earned 680,000 euros last year.
It makes me laugh when I hear this cost base bull**** being wheeled out how come the Cost Base lowering only applies to the people on 30 to 40,000 a year.

Next time one of these economists wheels out the cost base Bull**** someone should ask how much of his salary he is giving up to help lower the cost base.


BTW Irish Ferries made a profit of 10 million euro last year this is not a company that is on its knees by any stretch of the imagination.
And the Bull**** about low cost airlines the days of ferries being an alternative to Airlines are over they are competing in two different markets until you can drive a 40 foot truck on to an airplane or bring your car on the plane.

pete

pete wrote:

How exactly would curtailing immigration have any effect on the Irish Ferries situation?

Macmorris wrote:

It might not have any effect on the Irish Ferries case but it will prevent the same thing happening with other jobs within Ireland.

Well ok then chicken little, how about we lose that whole "THE SKY IS FALLING! IMMIGRATION IS TO BLAME!" guff until you can actually build something approximating a causal relationship between the two?

thanks.

Solair

This has nothing to do with the EU at all. It's a bahamas registered vessel operating under bahamas labour law!
What's EU expansion got to do with it?!

maccor

i think this is only the beginning. I agree that this has been facilitated by the YES vote in the nice agreement a few years back. Yet another reason on why the current government just sucks, since they convinced too many people to vote YES and paved the way for this crap

maccor

Solair wrote:

This has nothing to do with the EU at all. It's a bahamas registered vessel operating under bahamas labour law!
What's EU expansion got to do with it?!

then they should feck off and call themselves bahamas ferries then

Hobbes

maccor wrote:

then they should feck off and call themselves bahamas ferries then

Absolutly. They should change the Irish tourist board to "The Polish Tourist Board" as well as the majority in the ITB are not Irish.

Funny though about the immigration malarky though. BBC did a documentry the other day and found that a large majority of UK businesses employed Polish workers and found them to be excellent workers and would work jobs that the Brits would turn thier noses up at.

but as mentioned The Ferries has nothing to do with Nice.

pete

maccor wrote:

I agree that this has been facilitated by the YES vote in the nice agreement a few years back.

How?

Dilly1

The Ferry company have found a way to keep themselves competitive by exploiting a loophole, If only people were taught in school that if you decide to become an employee rather than a business owner, you must accept the fact that someday you will become surplus to requirements and let go.

A Dub in Glasgo

If everybody was a business owner, there would be nobody to make profit from

oscarBravo

Customers?

Dilly1

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

If everybody was a business owner, there would be nobody to make profit from

If everybody stood on one side of the world at the same time... I could go on

ronbyrne2005

the eastern european workers are being exploited
the eastern european workers arent being exploited! why are they so eager to work on this ship? ok the may only get 4 euro an hour but they get transport to/from ship they get accomodation and free food , all that 4euro is disposable income, they can earn twice as much on the ship as they could in their own country.
if irish ferries doesnt change its cost base it faces bankruptcy , things had to change as all their competitors did,cruise ships have been doing this for decades employing cheap asian labour and operating from american and european ports.
im sure most people on here accept market principles when their house goes up in value or their wages rise due to productivity or promotion, what is happening at irish ferries s merely a reflection of the globalised free market,get over it,we took the jobs of americans when dell ,financial services jobs moved here,dont be hypocrites.it mighnt seem like a nice thing to do but irish ferries have no choice and merely took advantage of marine law(which the irish of european parliments cant change as its outside their jurisdiction etc) to save the company.
low air fares and increased competition led to the competitve disadvantage at irish ferries,so you the consumer are in a way responsibe.
this is a quirk in the law and is impossible of being incorporated into any other business except maybe aviation but im not sure, so all the scare mongering is erroneous,there will not be "yellow pack"jobs in the rest of the economy,
as to using the name irish ferries its just a name,there is nothing to stop some somali ferry firm operating in ireland and calling itself ferries of ireland,the name is just a historical legacy of the state ownership

ronbyrne2005

sunday times article
"It is a moment that challenges everyone, on all sides, to declare on the side of decency, social dialogue and constructive engagement, or on the side of thuggery, brutality and the law of the jungle,” claims Jack O’Connor, the general president of Siptu. Who could possibly disagree with his emotional analysis of the Irish Ferries dispute? Apparently, very few.
Sympathy for the plight of the “embattled” workers poured forth from RTE, the state-owned broadcaster, while politicians queued to wring their hands at the unfairness of it all. Friday’s Morning Ireland, the country’s most popular radio programme, gave us interviews with an electrical officer who was barricaded in the Isle of Inishmore’s control room; with an officer on shore leave (as they all are for more than six months of the year); with a trade union official who would not rule out a blockade of Irish ports; with Tony Killeen, a junior minister, who thought it was all very terrible but didn’t think he could do much about it.



This deluge of emotion was “balanced” by an interview with Alf McGrath of Irish Ferries. Instead of gentle questions about how he felt about it all, McGrath was pounced upon. How do you justify your tactics? Are you spoiling for a fight? Are air supplies being cut off? Is this the Irish Wapping? The questions played to a simplistic, and false, interpretation of the dispute: nasty capitalists placing their jackboots on the throats of the poor workers, locking them out of their rightful employment and threatening to starve them of oxygen. Who wouldn’t be moved by such a story of exploitation and intimidation? Well, me, for one.

To understand what is happening at Irish Ferries you have to unravel some interwoven strands. On one level, this is a simple tale of a company that is running out of time. In two years, or less, it will be out of business because the costs of running its ferry services across the Irish Sea are too high. Its problems this year, and next, have been exacerbated by the sharp rise in the price of fuel, but its business was already doomed by high labour costs and falling demand for passenger services.

To survive, it had to cut costs. Like 95% of the other ships that use Irish ports, it decided to replace its Irish workers with cheaper agency workers. Generous redundancy terms were offered to staff — some will receive more than €300,000 — and the plan was put to a vote. More than 90% accepted the terms, and cannot wait to get their hands on the money. The small number who wanted to keep their jobs were offered reduced terms, but still better than those already agreed to by Siptu for Irish Ferries’ service to France. A small minority opted, as they have before, for conflict.

If the plan proceeds, Irish Ferries has a reasonable chance of survival. That’s good news for the 250 shore-based jobs that rely on it, and good news for the Irish economy, which relies on Irish Ferries to provide a freight service. If the plan fails, the ships will be sold, all jobs will be lost and the money left for redundancies significantly reduced.

The replacement crew, hired by an outside agency, will earn substantially less than the Irish seafarers. They will be paid, we are told, about €4 an hour, just over half the Irish minimum wage. “Slave wages,” cry the unions, but rarely mentioned is the fact the wages are tax free, and that the new workers get accommodation and food, as well as transport to and from the ships.

They will earn substantially more than the minimum wage in many European countries, and far more than the minimum wage in their own. They could instead come to the Irish mainland and earn more in gross pay, but then pay our taxes, and our Rip-Off republic living costs. Instead they opted for the high seas.

Irish Ferries can do this because it is a shipping company, operating under different rules to the rest of the Irish economy. It is coming into line with competitors, and will comply with the International Transport Federation’s agreed rates of pay. That is the nature of the shipping business, and we have chosen not to alter it.

Sporadic attempts to introduce a European directive that would force shipping companies to pay their workers the minimum wage that applied in their home country, or in one of the countries served by their operations, have failed to get off the ground. It is an international market, with very moveable assets, and it is simply dumb to expect one company to operate to a set of rules that do not apply to its competitors.

Which is where we get the next level of the dispute, which is political and much more dangerous. Disingenuously, O’Connor and his comrades have tried to propagate the myth that what is happening in Irish Ferries will soon happen in your place of work. Their battle cry is workers’ rights, and they are trying to browbeat the government into introducing legislation that will throttle the economy and drive away the foreign investment that has fuelled so much of this country’s boom.

They want the Labour court, which operates under a voluntary code, to be given legislative teeth so that it can force solutions on companies. Some of the comrades want curbs on immigration; others want even more restrictive labour laws. Try selling that to Dell or Intel or Microsoft and see how long they stay put.

O’Connor’s ace, so he thinks, is social partnership: if Bertie Ahern’s government does not play ball on labour legislation, then he and the comrades will pull the plug and plunge the country into chaos. It is a ritualistic threat; one that rears up when it’s time to renegotiate the partnership, and Irish Ferries has become the unions’ whipping boy.

So they talk of blockading the ports, and threaten a day of national protest. Ships are seized by union members and O’Connor mans the barricades. And all because more than 90% of the employees of a private company have voted to accept a redundancy package that is more generous than the one put forward by Aer Lingus, a state-owned company, last year.

It is a nonsense; where were the barricades when the rest of the shipping companies outsourced their workers? Yet it is allowed to gain credibility because the state-owned broadcaster, itself dominated by trade unions, is prepared to present Siptu’s disingenuous case as if it were the unvarnished truth.
But Siptu and its allies are fighting for relevance, not for the rights of Irish Ferries’ workers, or for the foreign workers who will replace them. Ireland’s trade unions dominate the public service, but are increasingly irrelevant in the private sector that drives our prosperity. They have enjoyed the prominence that social partnership has delivered: the access to government, the participation in endless committees, the sense of power that comes from being at the centre — but it has not halted their decline.
Instead of re-inventing themselves, the unions have regressed: they seem to think that confrontation will draw recruits to their steadily dwindling ranks.



The threat to abandon social partnership is real, and it worries Ahern, who worships consensus. He will be desperate to appease the unions, but he is not on solid ground. His coalition partners in the Progressive Democrats will refuse concessions that hobble the labour market, and this is no time to go to the country.

Ahern cannot bend Irish Ferries to his will — unless he proposes buying it back — and he may yet be forced to face down a union blockade of the Irish export market. Tough times for a man who struggles to make a decision, but he will need to be tough.

The taoiseach can afford to abandon the paraphernalia of social partnership — the embrace of the unions that puts them into positions of influence — but he still needs a mechanism to negotiate public- sector pay and public-sector reform. It is a delicate game, but one that he needs to win because the pretence that trade unions have any relevance outside the public sector must end.

The Irish Ferries dispute demonstrates precisely how disproportionate their power and influence have become. A private company that faces extinction is being prevented from rescuing itself, not because its employees object, but because the leadership of the trade union movement wants a cause with which it can blackmail the government.

So pick your side carefully. The real thuggery and intimidation comes not from a company that wants to survive, and which is backed by its employees, but from a trade union movement that is prepared to threaten the government and imperil the economy because its powers are waning. The last sting of a dying wasp? Let’s hope so.

ronbyrne2005

plus the eastern european workers get their wages tax free!

billy the squid

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

the eastern european workers are being exploited
the eastern european workers arent being exploited! why are they so eager to work on this ship? ok the may only get 4 euro an hour but they get transport to/from ship they get accomodation and free food , all that 4euro is disposable income, they can earn twice as much on the ship as they could in their own country.
if irish ferries doesnt change its cost base it faces bankruptcy , things had to change as all their competitors did,cruise ships have been doing this for decades employing cheap asian labour and operating from american and european ports.

Then why didnt the head of Irish ferries take a cut in his wages and benefits when the workers did. €600,000 is a ****load of money. Could you live on €4 an hour? why don't you try it.

im sure most people on here accept market principles when their house goes up in value or their wages rise due to productivity or promotion, what is happening at irish ferries s merely a reflection of the globalised free market,get over it,

What Irish Ferries are doing is illegal under employment legislation, it is illegal to sack someone and replace them with someone taking a lower wage. The position has to be being made redundant, not the person. The ship operates out of Ireland, it brands itself as Irish so it should have respect for Irish law.

we took the jobs of americans when dell ,financial services jobs moved here,dont be hypocrites.it mighnt seem like a nice thing to do but irish ferries have no choice and merely took advantage of marine law(which the irish of european parliments cant change as its outside their jurisdiction etc) to save the company

Firstly your comments are about Dell are bollox to be honest. We did not take any US jobs when Dell expanded here as Dell does not manufacture any products destined for the US market in ireland. This is done in Austin Texas by American workers.. When Dell started up in Liemrick (castletroy) it had 150 workers, both their plants in Austin Texas and their plants here in Liemrick expanded from what were very small workforces. Also, while wages at dell are pretty ****, they are above the minimum wage.

Secondly, there is a whole rake of US states which do not have a minimum wage, and any american company had a choice of states to set up in over there before deciding to come here.

Most of the companies came here, not because it was cheaper, but because of the location in europe, our high level of education etc. and you will also find that they are bound by the minimum wage laws of this country.

low air fares and increased competition led to the competitve disadvantage at irish ferries,so you the consumer are in a way responsibe.
this is a quirk in the law and is impossible of being incorporated into any other business except maybe aviation but im not sure, so all the scare mongering is erroneous,there will not be "yellow pack"jobs in the rest of the economy,
as to using the name irish ferries its just a name,there is nothing to stop some somali ferry firm operating in ireland and calling itself ferries of ireland,the name is just a historical legacy of the state ownership

The workers are Irish citezens, they should be protected by Irish law, Irish Ferries (should have) a certificate of incorporation in Ireland therefore (if it does) it should abide by Irish Law, Irish ferries has its HQ in Ireland, therefore it should abide by Irish law.

plus the eastern european workers get their wages tax free!

so not only is this setup hurting the workers, it is also hurting the exchequer.

The PESP, Partnership 2000, and PPF are what made this country a success, what irish ferries are trying to do is pull over 20 years of hard work apart.

ronbyrne2005

billy the squid wrote:

Then why didnt the head of Irish ferries take a cut in his wages and benefits when the workers did. €600,000 is a ****load of money. Could you live on €4 an hour? why don't you try it.




What Irish Ferries are doing is illegal under employment legislation, it is illegal to sack someone and replace them with someone taking a lower wage. The position has to be being made redundant, not the person. The ship operates out of Ireland, it brands itself as Irish so it should have respect for Irish law.



Firstly your comments are about Dell are bollox to be honest. We did not take any US jobs when Dell expanded here as Dell does not manufacture any products destined for the US market in ireland. This is done in Austin Texas by American workers.. When Dell started up in Liemrick (castletroy) it had 150 workers, both their plants in Austin Texas and their plants here in Liemrick expanded from what were very small workforces. Also, while wages at dell are pretty ****, they are above the minimum wage.

Secondly, there is a whole rake of US states which do not have a minimum wage, and any american company had a choice of states to set up in over there before deciding to come here.

Most of the companies came here, not because it was cheaper, but because of the location in europe, our high level of education etc. and you will also find that they are bound by the minimum wage laws of this country.



The workers are Irish citezens, they should be protected by Irish law, Irish Ferries (should have) a certificate of incorporation in Ireland therefore (if it does) it should abide by Irish Law, Irish ferries has its HQ in Ireland, therefore it should abide by Irish law.



so not only is this setup hurting the workers, it is also hurting the exchequer.

The PESP, Partnership 2000, and PPF are what made this country a success, what irish ferries are trying to do is pull over 20 years of hard work apart.

why should a ceo take a pay cut when its not his fault the company is heading for financial choppy waters? its the going rate for a ceo of a plc of this size,the company is succesful on its freight business,his renumeration would be voted against at the agm of the company of he wasnt earning it.as for living on 4euro an hour ,the new employees dont have to "live" on 4 eur an hour their living costs(food accomodation etc) are covered by irish ferries,the 4 euro an hour is very good for them,they could save 10k a year working on the ship which is a lot when their local wages are 5k a year!

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,also they could re-incorporate in estonia or latvia and avoid irish employment law like in this example form sunday business post.

"operator Viking Line that has some parallels with the Irish situation.
Viking Line obtained an injunction against the International Transport Workers Federation in June, which could have serious repercussions for other trade unions in the European Union such as Siptu. According to Davy analyst Stephen Furlong, the London judgment is based on the freedom of establishment provisions contained in EU treaties, that is the right of companies to set up wherever they like in the EU.
The decision effectively meant that Viking was free to establish a subsidiary in Estonia and employ Estonian crew - allowing it to cut costs drastically and to compete with other ferry operators employing low-cost Estonian crews on the Baltic routes."


maybe im wrong on dell but dont kid yourself the multinationals arent here cos we are so educated ,its primarily a tax driven thing as pointed out by the new york times and wall street journal recently,transfer pricing etc.we are taking tax revenues from the american treasury.

obviously they dont have to abide by irish law in relation to the current irish workers.but dont worry the emplyees are being well looked after with generous payoffs, some getting up to 300k ,not bad for a semi skilled/unskilled worker.
partnership is dead mate,may have been necessary in the bad old days of the 80's early ninties ,nowadays employees negotiate with their employers directly instead of having the arcahic unions get involved except in the protected public sector where benchmarking etc was a disgrace.the public sector is a disgrace ,overpaid and underworked/inefficent.
the big private sector unions know their days are numbered ,numbers are dwindling and they are losing the power they had over the govenment on the past,they are using the irish ferries incident to try and boost themselves coming up to the new partnership negotiations.feck partnership let the market decide! outsource the whole public sector and we might get some decent services!

billy the squid

Before I go into the post below I would just like to point out that people on minimum wage are also Tax Free,

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

why should a ceo take a pay cut when its not his fault the company is heading for financial choppy waters?

Said company made 20 million profit last year, and handles 30 percent of Irish imports/exports.

Irish Ferries' claim that they are headed for the poorhouse is scaremongering. nothing more and nothing less. the company is in a perfect position to continue making a profit.

its the going rate for a ceo of a plc of this size,the company is succesful on its freight business,his renumeration would be voted against at the agm of the company of he wasnt earning it.as for living on 4euro an hour ,the new employees dont have to "live" on 4 eur an hour their living costs(food accomodation etc) are covered by irish ferries,the 4 euro an hour is very good for them,they could save 10k a year working on the ship which is a lot when their local wages are 5k a year.

So they get to live on the boat, without access to alternative employment offering better pay in either Ireland, the UK and France. Sounds more like bonded labour to me than a decent job. It is also worth pointing out that because these outsourced workers are not from the countries which Irish ferries serve, employee turnover will be much higher than before, The training costs will no doubt eat into their already decent profits.

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,

Irish ferries wants to register in Cyprus. a move to do so would be bad for ireland, some examples of the safety record of cypriot transport companies.
link

also they could re-incorporate in estonia or latvia and avoid irish employment law like in this example form sunday business post.

"operator Viking Line that has some parallels with the Irish situation.
Viking Line obtained an injunction against the International Transport Workers Federation in June, which could have serious repercussions for other trade unions in the European Union such as Siptu. According to Davy analyst Stephen Furlong, the London judgment is based on the freedom of establishment provisions contained in EU treaties, that is the right of companies to set up wherever they like in the EU.
The decision effectively meant that Viking was free to establish a subsidiary in Estonia and employ Estonian crew - allowing it to cut costs drastically and to compete with other ferry operators employing low-cost Estonian crews on the Baltic routes."

According to the article you quoted above, Viking only operate using estonian workers on their Baltic routes. How many eastern european routes does Irish ferries have? oh yeah, zero. I counted them twice to be sure.

maybe im wrong on dell but dont kid yourself the multinationals arent here cos we are so educated ,its primarily a tax driven thing as pointed out by the new york times and wall street journal recently,transfer pricing etc.we are taking tax revenues from the american treasury.

This is still incorrect, we are not taking bugger all from the US treasury as the opening of the Dell EMF plants in Limerick did not affect the size of Dell's plants in Texas.

Not only does the likes of dell pay employers PRSI to the revenue commissioners here ontop of other taxes, but it pays tax on its profits in the US.

obviously they dont have to abide by irish law in relation to the current irish workers.but dont worry the emplyees are being well looked after with generous payoffs, some getting up to 300k ,not bad for a semi skilled/unskilled worker.

If they can afford to pay nearly 15 times the annual industrial wage, then they can afford to pay these workers the same as the Irish workers which are there already.

billy the squid

partnership is dead mate,may have been necessary in the bad old days of the 80's early ninties ,nowadays employees negotiate with their employers directly instead of having the arcahic unions get involved except in the protected public sector where benchmarking etc was a disgrace.the public sector is a disgrace ,overpaid and underworked/inefficent.

I cannot comment on the public sector as I work in the private sector, and your opinion that unions are arcahic is just that, your opinion.

feck partnership let the market decide! outsource the whole public sector and we might get some decent services!

Will you be singing the same tune when your signing on for the dole after someone less expensive takes over from you?

ronbyrne2005

billy the squid wrote:

Before I go into the post below I would just like to point out that people on minimum wage are also Tax Free,



Said company made 20 million profit last year, and handles 30 percent of Irish imports/exports.,
this is a low level of profit for a company with such high revenue and capital employed.irish ferrie return on capital employed is about 3 or 4% its cost of capital is 8%! thats not sustainable,plus its ferry passengers are declining at a time when they should be increasing but low fare airlines competition etc.
Irish Ferries' claim that they are headed for the poorhouse is scaremongering. nothing more and nothing less. the company is in a perfect position to continue making a profit.
hardly its the job of a plc to maximise profit not to make a little and be happy,currently profits arent being maximised,the equivalent would be if you were half doing your job but getting full pay,its economically unsustainable



So they get to live on the boat, without access to alternative employment offering better pay in either Ireland, the UK and France. Sounds more like bonded labour to me than a decent job. It is also worth pointing out that because these outsourced workers are not from the countries which Irish ferries serve, employee turnover will be much higher than before, The training costs will no doubt eat into their already decent profits.
no body is forcing them to stay on boat and they are free to leave whenever they like,they get a few free flights home per year and i'd say they have a good time working for good wages(in their view) with fellow young people from former soviet bloc drinking tax and duty free beer when not working as i did when i was working on a cruise ship in carribean

its technically not illegal the new employees arent technically employees of irish ferries but rather are working for an agency.anyway its doubtfull that labour law employs at sea especially if the company is based in bahama's or somewhere like that,

Irish ferries wants to register in Cyprus. a move to do so would be bad for ireland, some examples of the safety record of cypriot transport companies.
link the move wouldnt make them a cypriot company! they would merely be registered there for tax/legal reasons,this is a spurious argument ,the figures relate to indigenous cypriot companies operating in mediteranean



According to the article you quoted above, Viking only operate using estonian workers on their Baltic routes. How many eastern european routes does Irish ferries have? oh yeah, zero. I counted them twice to be sure.the fact its estonian is irrelevant , the relevant fact id that the judge found that a company could locate anywhere in eu to take advantage of favorable law/tax even if jobs would be lost in original country and country of operation



This is still incorrect, we are not taking bugger all from the US treasury as the opening of the Dell EMF plants in Limerick did not affect the size of Dell's plants in Texas.im not talking about dell specifically,read the articles in new york times wall strett journal and irish media recently on anger in america at ireland taking tax revunues and effectively being a tax haven where multinationals locate to lower their tax liabilites, microsoft avoided paying 500million dollars in usa by paying a little amount here ,other scams include shipping parts into ireland and just doing basic assembly here then claiming its and irish made product to qualify for very low tax relative to home country

Not only does the likes of dell pay employers PRSI to the revenue commissioners here ontop of other taxes, but it pays tax on its profits in the US.most US multinationals pay little corporate tax or a lot less than they should if paying the nominal rate of 35% in usa,they use the likes of ireland and other tax havens to avoid the massive profits being taxed in america,this is a fact and can be read about in irish and american media.



If they can afford to pay nearly 15 times the annual industrial wage, then they can afford to pay these workers the same as the Irish workers which are there already.the reason they are paying 300k is that in the long term the savings will be greater than this,this demonstrates the inefficiency of the irish labour and inefficent use of labour is economically an inefficent use of assets, if they could afford to pay the new workers same as irish ones why would they bother with the negative publicity of sacking irish workers,they feel they have to make tough descisions to maximise shareholder value and efficently use their assets. the new workers will come in(as irish feerries are private company and everything they are doing is legal) and irish ferries will prosper,the old workers will find new employment and have a nice lump sum

1

ressem

543 workers * 140 p/week at the new price. (Not sure whether this is before or after agency fees, an average or minimum).

Board of directors' pay will probably be comparable to the entire outsourced workforce. So worth looking at the salary & pension of an Estonian CEO.

As for "the inefficiency of the irish labour" do you meant the cost of employing an Irish person with an onshore dependant?

I think that all our feckless dependentless siblings, willing to work for the price of B&B, are in the Antipodes working at feeding frozen fish to dolphins at the moment.


I find Rothwell's statement of including onship living expenses to give a 'total' higher than the Irish minimum wage ridiculous.

For outsourced workers, about 6 months is spent on board, 6 months off non-contiguous, according to his release in the indo. Won't some form of accomodation in Estonia be required for these off duty stints?

The 300k redundancy is a max. 'significent numbers' will get over 100,000 apparently, which could mean for example less than 10% for all we know. And almost certainly not to the unskilled, inexperienced.


Though on a lighter note ron, did you really favourably compare working on a roro on the irish sea with a cruise ship on the bahamas?

Heard yesterday on the news about an american fast food crowd that outsources the person listening at the drivethrough to a call centre. Efficient, but there goes my employment prospects when I hit my 70s.

Dilly1

Public Sector = "give me a job for life and all the perks", "but dont dare ask me to do any work"


Thats just my experience of the public sector, and the attitude of people I worked with, their attidude was quite scary :eek:

ronbyrne2005

ressem wrote:

543 workers * 140 p/week at the new price. (Not sure whether this is before or after agency fees, an average or minimum).

Board of directors' pay will probably be comparable to the entire outsourced workforce. So worth looking at the salary & pension of an Estonian CEO.

As for "the inefficiency of the irish labour" do you meant the cost of employing an Irish person with an onshore dependant?

I think that all our feckless dependentless siblings, willing to work for the price of B&B, are in the Antipodes working at feeding frozen fish to dolphins at the moment.


I find Rothwell's statement of including onship living expenses to give a 'total' higher than the Irish minimum wage ridiculous.

For outsourced workers, about 6 months is spent on board, 6 months off non-contiguous, according to his release in the indo. Won't some form of accomodation in Estonia be required for these off duty stints?

The 300k redundancy is a max. 'significent numbers' will get over 100,000 apparently, which could mean for example less than 10% for all we know. And almost certainly not to the unskilled, inexperienced.


Though on a lighter note ron, did you really favourably compare working on a roro on the irish sea with a cruise ship on the bahamas?

Heard yesterday on the news about an american fast food crowd that outsources the person listening at the drivethrough to a call centre. Efficient, but there goes my employment prospects when I hit my 70s.

lifes tough ,dog eat dog,get over it and look after yourself,invest in irish ferries and you wont have to work in your 70's

gandalf

Right just to put this into perspective. I work for a distribution company, we import a lot of stock via the UK. This is an email we have gotten from our Vendors re shipments at the moment.

Good afternoon All,

I have received a call from one of our Hauliers. He has been told that Stena Holyhead have instructed Stena Dublin not to take anymore bookings also the trailer that have confirmed bookings will NOT ship tonight as the Port is in chaos. They are threatening to close the port of Holyhead until all trailers that are there are shipped.

I am trying to get any information from Stena but at the moment they are not answering their phones.

I will update you as I hear any more.

This is causing us issues and will cause our customers and theirs issues. The longer this runs on the worse it will get with peoples pay packets being hit at the time of year they need the money the most, and if this drags on any longer jobs will be lost.

The Government have to take the bull by the horns and knock the companies managements and the Unions heads together and resolve this. The insipid response from this government to a very serious issue just proves they are a pack of lame ducks.

Tuars

gandalf wrote:

This is causing us issues and will cause our customers and theirs issues. The longer this runs on the worse it will get with peoples pay packets being hit at the time of year they need the money the most, and if this drags on any longer jobs will be lost.

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

lifes tough ,dog eat dog,get over it and look after yourself...

...

gaf1983

In my opinion the sooner the EU Ferries Directive is passed, offering standardized decent working conditions across the EU, the better.

What has to be avoided now is the race to the bottom, as alluded to by Ahern. This is would appear to be already happening in other sectors, such as the retail one, as this Limerick Post article on the labour practices of one company attests to.

Why should the race to the bottom be avoided? Well experience shows that there are a myriad of reasons - for instance, if you offer workers poor conditions, they tend to become unhappy - and unhappy workers won't be productive, and those that are talented enough to find employment elsewhere will do just that. Also if the poor working conditions involve working for long periods without breaks, this leads to an environment with tired crotchety workers more likely to make mistakes and thereby possibly jeopardise the health and safety of their colleagues, employers and customers.