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Leave minimum wage alone - Lalor
27.07.09
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A BUNCRANA councillor
is appealing to businesses in Inishowen not to
support calls for a cut in the minimum wage.
Cllr Daren Lalor said the minimum wage played an
important role in keeping Ireland’s lowest paid
workers "out of the poverty trap”.
“While I fully understand that our small to
medium-sized businesses in Inishowen and across the
State are finding it difficult in the current
economic climate, the knee-jerk reaction by some
within this sector in calling for a reduction of the
minimum wage is wrong and lacks vision to see the
bigger picture," said the Sinn Féin councillor.
“The increase in the minimum wage was not a luxury
but a necessity. It reflected the real cost of
living for low-income workers. Slashing the wages of
those on the minimum wage will not only have a
profound impact on the affected workers but will do
little to get us out of the recession." |
Cllr Lalor claimed the
Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC)
and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan won't admit that
Ireland’s competitiveness had been hampered "by
decades of under investment in critical
infrastructure and services, an over reliance on
Foreign Direct Investment, a failure to foster and
development a widespread culture of innovation, and
bloated senior management pay in the private and
public sectors".
"Wage restraint needs to happen from the top |
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down, not the bottom
up. Addressing issues that affect the cost of
business such as local authority water charges,
commercial rates and energy costs will increase our
competitiveness far more than the knee-jerk reaction
of slashing those on the lowest wages," he said. He
said cutting the minimum wage of €18,000 per annum
would be a "massively retrograde step". |
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