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A PEOPLE BEFORE Profit bill which would bring the minimum wage for workers under the age of 20 in line with the national minimum wage will be debated in the Dáil tomorrow.
Under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, 17 year olds in the workforce can be paid €7.91 per hour, which is 70% of the national minimum wage of €11.30 for people aged 20 and over.
People Before Profit have branded the tiered minimum wage, which allows 18-year-olds to be paid 80% of the minimum wage and 19-year-olds to be paid 90%, as “pay discrimination”.
Speaking about his party’s National Minimum Wage (Equal Pay for Young Workers) Bill, PBP TD Paul Murphy said that the current minimum wage laws are “perverse and exploitative”.
“We know that the minimum wage is completely inadequate to survive on given that we are in a cost of living crisis, but 15,000 workers are paid even less than minimum wage purely because they are younger than 20,” he said.
The bill has been supported by trade unions including the ICTU, Mandate and Unite, as well as UCD Students Union, the Union of Students in Ireland and the Irish Second Level Students Union.
Murphy added that the difference in pay isn’t just an issue for young people, but that during the summer employers will “prefer to take on young people on less than minimum wage instead of giving extra hours” to older staff.
“If you’re 17, 18 or 19 you can’t go to your landlord and say ‘Here’s 90% of the rent’, or go to a supermarket and say ‘Here’s 80% of the price of my goods’. They have to buy goods and services at the same rate as the rest of us.”
People Before Profit will hold a rally in support of the bill in front of Leinster House at 9.30am tomorrow, with trade and student unions.
The party also advocated for the abolition of the Universal Social Charge (USC) today, calling for it to be replaced with a tax on income over €100,000 and a ‘millionaire’s tax’.
The charge was introduced in 2011 to increase the annual revenue raised by the Income and Health Levies it replaced.
A person on a yearly income of €50,000 would pay approximately €1,500 in USC, depending on which exemptions they qualify for.
People Before Profit TD for Cork North Central Mick Barry said that his party feels strongly that the “temporary austerity measure” needs to be abolished.
“Fine Gael in the 2016 election pledged that if they were in the next government, that the Universal Social Charge would go. It didn’t,” Barry said.
5 years ago, 1000s paid their #1st USC under #fiannafail. @finegael will abolish USC over the lifetime of the next Government #ffardfheis
— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) January 16, 2016
”USC is a real burden on the backs of working people during a cost of living crisis,” he continued.
“We aren’t in favour of abolishing the USC and leaving the state with a narrower tax base. We are in favour of bringing in a higher income social charge of 10% for people with income over €100,000.”
He added that the party was also in favour of a millionaire’s tax of 2% on income over one million euro, which Barry claimed would leave the state with a higher tax take than it receives from USC.
Barry’s fellow PBP TD Richard Boyd Barrett added that their party was the only one in Ireland still advocating for the abolition of the USC.
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Are things cheaper in the shops if your under 20? rhetorical question…
@patrick kelly: Good chance you’re living at home and heavily subsidised by your parents
@Thomas O’ Donnell: that being the case 2 lots of people are being discriminated by this policy bith parents and adult children.
People before profit really trying their best to stay relevant now!
@Irish mammy: They’re chasing the young vote for the next election coz everyone above 23 have copped to them now
@david finglas: do you think their bill is fair or not or do you think what you are paid should depend on your age?
I can’t envisage how this is even legal under equality and discrimination laws, but hey this is Ireland and the elites do as they please while the rest of us get screwed. As for Lying, leaky leo. Well what do you expect.
This is blatant discrimination. It’s imposed on the basis that young people are still likely to be living off their parents. But some young people are not.
@Nicholas McMurry: I’d hazard a guess quite a number are still at home so in many respects, they likely are, indirectly at least.
@Lydia McLoughlin: There’s thousands of 20,30 and 40 year olds living at home. Should the same rate apply to them?
@Tommy Berry: why not? Really the only fair way is for all households to be assessed individually but that will never happen too expensive, but lets keep handing out all these allowances to everyone and accept that a lot of these 20-40 year olds (?and above) couldn’t be a***d working a day in their lives!
When I started working as a teenager, I was given a probationary/training period where the pay was less.
After qualifying, I then went onto the full going rate
What has happened that system?
And this is precisely why we see so many companies who exclusively hire 17 year olds. When you can get the same value of work but for only 70% of the cost you’d be a fool to hire anyone but 17 year olds really. It’s a wonder that companies with costly 21 year olds on staff can even compete really.
@Peter Wiggin: If the base rate was the same for everyone would any young person without any job experience ever have a chance of getting a job?
@KilkennyProud: exactly! But this gets pointed out every time any economically illiterate lefty wants to start messing with min wage rates, and they always ignore it. The only conclusion is they consider those incapable of producing the value of the min wage to be expendable sacrifices in their never ending battle against capital and the successful.
@KilkennyProud: In the current economic climate with full employment, they would. I see numerous CVs everyday from older people either with no experience or who job hop every couple of months. When I do take on younger people it’s because they stand out on their CV or at interview. Why should they earn less for doing the same job as someone a few years older with the same inexperience?
Under 20s should be paid the same as over 40s.. discrimination .. lol snowflake culture hard at it again
These laws exist as a mechanism to bring in border invaders/colonizers (asylum seekers, refugees, illegal immigrants, migrants). The indiginous people of Ireland under 20 will often refuse to work for those wages, and the traitor government knows this will happen. It then gives the government an “excuse” to bring in the border invaders/colonizers claiming that they will do the jobs that the indiginous people refuse to do. But, the border invaders/colonizers get everything free, so that enables then to work for the lower wages. The government gives the border invaders/colonizers lots of freebies (free money, free housing, free food, free medical, free hotels, free phones, free transportation, free education, free legal, free child care, free legal, special low interest mortgages, et cetera).
@Robert Bruce Tracy: what a load of nonsense. There are more jobs than jobseekers at present. Ask any employer. Looks like you do not like foreign nationals. I suppose you will refuse medical/hospitality/ service provision from them. Go back into your shell.
Since I’m not allowed reply to the response to my comment on the other article… Mr. Dreamcatcher thinks you need to be from the place a needless loss of life occured in order to be concerned
Forgot to mention that the training period was 3 months
“The party also advocated for the abolition of the Universal Social Charge (USC) today, calling for it to be replaced with a tax on income over €100,000 and a ‘millionaire’s tax’.”
Populist nonsense!
The country’s finances collapsed after the financial crisis because so many Irish workers paid no tax. And PBF are suggesting we go there again…
Ouch!
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