Irish Labour Court Refutes UKIP Claims

Scofflaw

An interesting intervention by the Irish Labour Court in respect of one of the claims made by the UKIP in their lovely leaflet:

Irish Labour Court wrote:

It has come to the Court’s attention that a leaflet being distributed by the UK Independence Party, in relation to the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, contains a serious misrepresentation of a decision of the Labour Court in a case concerning the applicability of an Registered Employment Agreement to electrical contractors based outside this jurisdiction.

The leaflet implies that contractors from other member states are not bound by the terms of such regulations. It seeks to rely on a decision of the Labour Court as authority for that proposition. The Court made no such decision and in fact decided the opposite in the case to which the leaflet refers.

The leaflet contains what purports to be a quote from the decision in question (Determination No.REP091) which has been altered so as to totally change its import.

That case concerned a claim by certain employers in the electrical contracting industry that the Registered Agreement for that Industry should be cancelled on the grounds, inter alia, that EU law prevents its application to contractors based outside the State. Having reviewed the current state of national and Community law, and relevant decisions of the European Court of Justice, the Court concluded that statutory regulations and agreements on pay and conditions of employment, which are legally binding in Ireland, are applicable to and enforceable against all employers operating within this jurisdiction irrespective of their country of origin.

It is neither the practice nor the desire of the Labour Court to engage in public controversy in relation to its decisions. However in circumstances in which one of its decisions is being seriously misrepresented for political purposes the Court considers it to be its duty to put the record straight.

The original document is here.

I'm so shocked.

cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome

Scofflaw wrote: »

An interesting intervention by the Irish Labour Court in respect of one of the claims made by the UKIP in their lovely leaflet:

The original document is [URL="e:\eudora\attach\Labour Court Statement 18092009 UKIP.pdf"]here[/URL].

I'm so shocked.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yeah we're all em... shocked. It's really great when these liars are challenged like this.

ixtlan

The problem is the mudslinging works.

Practically everyone will soon have access to that leaflet. How many will hear the labour court response?

The People's Alliance have done the same thing in their leaflet, twisting the meaning of the Labour court judgement with a ... replacement.

All these lies add up, and are worth a few percent in the vote. It's depressing.


Ix.

Nehaxak

Apart from all the nonsense and abuse/misuse of the facts surrounding the minimum wage and the 1.84 crap that is being sputed about, I think what is happening here and where some of the public still have their doubts is this...

If I'm employed in Poland by a Polish firm and travel to Ireland to work as a sparks for 3 months, I may be working in Ireland but I work for and am paid by the firm in Poland. If my pay in Poland is say €2 per hour, my wages are not going to suddenly go up to €30 per hour (or whatever it is these days for a sparks in Ireland) when I go to work here, so long as I'm still working for the company in Poland while I am here.
As far as I know this is not illegal and has been done many a time in the recent past until such a time as those people being exploited said, well to hell with this I'll just leave my firm in Poland and take a job directly in Ireland and benefit from at least the better minimum wage they have here.
So that happens, then the company from Poland just gets more local contractors in their own country, brings them over, lalala, it continues unabated.
It only becomes and issue for the courts if somebody complains and the labour court does find an issue but the company then dissolves and re-registers in Poland under a different name and lalala, it continues again.

The Irish company who contracts that Polish company just pays that company a set amount, they don't care who they use or what they pay those workers to get the job done.

Isn't this similiar to what Irish Ferries did and which the labour court where of little if any help at all to the Irish workers who lost their jobs ?

People are naive if they think this hasn't happened already and will not happen again. It's not such a big problem right now as work is scarce enough as it is and stuff like this happening won't go as unnoticed as it has before in the boom times.

What is the text of the article or change in the Lisbon treaty that these people are saying will somehow drive the minimum wage down to €1.84 ? Can anyone actually quote the text of that part please so I can read over and in to it better ?

Nehaxak

Scofflaw wrote: »

The original document is URL="e:\eudora\attach\Labour Court Statement 18092009 UKIP.pdf"

You linked the original doc from your pen drive or something, any chance you can upload or link from whatever site you got it from ?

EDIT: Nevermind, found it...

http://www.labourcourt.ie/Labour/Information.nsf/ae03513d3008bb5b8025697d00504774/a4d52b2e0efd19c7802576350047b1e3?OpenDocument

Hitman Actual

Nehaxak wrote: »

What is the text of the article or change in the Lisbon treaty that these people are saying will somehow drive the minimum wage down to €1.84 ? Can anyone actually quote the text of that part please so I can read over and in to it better ?

It doesn't exist in the Treaty. What Cóir did was to take the average of the minimum wages in all 27 EU countries to arrive at their bogus 1.84 figure. Its complete BS.

I know there's still a certain amount of confusion over the Treaty, but a good rule of thumb is- if any claim is linked to Cóir in any way, just disregard it completely. Their reality is different to that of every other sane person in Ireland.

ixtlan

Nehaxak wrote: »

If I'm employed in Poland by a Polish firm and travel to Ireland to work as a sparks for 3 months, I may be working in Ireland but I work for and am paid by the firm in Poland. If my pay in Poland is say €2 per hour, my wages are not going to suddenly go up to €30 per hour (or whatever it is these days for a sparks in Ireland) when I go to work here, so long as I'm still working for the company in Poland while I am here.
As far as I know this is not illegal and has been done many a time in the recent past until such a time as those people being exploited said, well to hell with this I'll just leave my firm in Poland and take a job directly in Ireland and benefit from at least the better minimum wage they have here.
So that happens, then the company from Poland just gets more local contractors in their own country, brings them over, lalala, it continues unabated.
It only becomes and issue for the courts if somebody complains and the labour court does find an issue but the company then dissolves and re-registers in Poland under a different name and lalala, it continues again.

You are contradicting yourself in saying this is not illegal... but then saying it's only an issue if the labour court gets involved.

Actually in the case of an electrician this is illegal, the guy from Poland must get the going rate in Ireland, and if people are willing break the law and ignore it and not report it then that is very much an Irish problem and nothing to do with the EU. Thery could just as easily be underpaying Irish workers under thread of sacking.

In the case of employees who do not have an REA (registered employment agreement - which covers most construction areas)... say a contract cleaning company, a company from Poland could come in and quote a lower price for a contract, and pay their employees less than those on the existing contract, as long as it was the minimum wage. It could not be less or they would be breaking the law. However this new company paying less could come from Mayo or Kerry also. It's just competition. As far as I know such contract companies coming in does not happen in low paying areas just because the profits do not justify the expense of bringing people in. I'm open to correction on this. Anyone know of such entries into the Irish labour market in non-REA area? I suspect not because many of the workers are already on minimum wage and cannot be undercut.

Irish ferries was an unusual case where people were more concerned about the principle rather than it's direct application to other companies. No one else is going to reflag their factory to exist in Cyprus.

Ix.

Nehaxak

http://www.labourcourt.ie/Labour/Information.nsf/9e8d974e9c82c1b8802569b20039d0e5/ec3440a0539dfc3680256f690041a307?OpenDocument

Knock yourself out reading the judgements made there, very very few made in favour of the claimants, in most cases the labour court sides with the employers even when in some cases the employer does not dispute paying less than minimum wage.

Ix, the employers that would do what I mentioned would have people working for them from their home country, registered and paying tax in that country (probably), while working in Ireland. A lot would come to Ireland on cheap flights, work for some weeks, a few months at most, then return home. Unless you're going to heavily police other EU citizens coming into our country, whether they come for a visit or to work and if they are here to work are they properly registered, getting paid the right amount and are they paying taxes - it's just not going to happen.

There's not a lot to argue here, what I've said used to happen - in fact I have done it myself many a time working in another country (mostly outside the EU though) while getting paid from Ireland and paying taxes in Ireland while on a visitor/holiday visa outside the EU and nothing required while inside the EU (though I was paid well at all times, not a pittance).
I just want someone to point out where the hell these people are getting the figure of 1.84 from in the text of the treaty.
I do believe they're making it all up as hitman says but on the offchance they have quoted some text, I'm hoping someone can point it out so I can read up on it.

marco_polo

Nehaxak wrote: »

http://www.labourcourt.ie/Labour/Information.nsf/9e8d974e9c82c1b8802569b20039d0e5/ec3440a0539dfc3680256f690041a307?OpenDocument

Knock yourself out reading the judgements made there, very very few made in favour of the claimants, in most cases the labour court sides with the employers even when in some cases the employer does not dispute paying less than minimum wage.

Ix, the employers that would do what I mentioned would have people working for them from their home country, registered and paying tax in that country (probably), while working in Ireland. A lot would come to Ireland on cheap flights, work for some weeks, a few months at most, then return home. Unless you're going to heavily police other EU citizens coming into our country, whether they come for a visit or to work and if they are here to work are they properly registered, getting paid the right amount and are they paying taxes - it's just not going to happen.

There's not a lot to argue here, what I've said used to happen - in fact I have done it myself many a time working in another country (mostly outside the EU though) while getting paid from Ireland and paying taxes in Ireland while on a visitor/holiday visa outside the EU and nothing required while inside the EU (though I was paid well at all times, not a pittance).
I just want someone to point out where the hell these people are getting the figure of 1.84 from in the text of the treaty.
I do believe they're making it all up as hitman says but on the offchance they have quoted some text, I'm hoping someone can point it out so I can read up on it.

Richard Green has stated on radio it was the average minimum wage of the last bunch of eastern european states or something like that. Nothing from the treaty.

In your case your wages were likely well above the legal minimum requirements (be that mimimum wage or a industry specific collective legal agreement) in the country you were posted to so it is not really relevant .

I do not really see that Irish labour courts decisions on Irish minimum wage law are relevant to the debate.

Hitman Actual

marco_polo wrote: »

Richard Green has stated on radio it was the average minimum wage of the last bunch of eastern european states or something like that. Nothing from the treaty.

LOL, Peter Murphy from Cóir said the average was from all 27 member states. There's so much BS in their warped little world that they can't even keep track of the lies amongst themselves. :pac:

marco_polo

Hitman Actual wrote: »

LOL, Peter Murphy from Cóir said the average was from all 27 member states. There's so much BS in their warped little world that they can't even keep track of the lies amongst themselves. :pac:

I could have the wrong person and number of states, it was a number of weeks ago. Not that it matter anyway