Skip to content
EXPLOITATION and DISPLACEMENT

Under-payment of migrant workers promotes inequality and racism.

Date Released: 21 Mar 2006

Ireland today is at a cross roads between racism and harmony, SIPTU Regional Secretary Mike Jennings has told a meeting of non-Irish SIPTU shop stewards in Liberty Hall, Dublin, today.  “Sadly our Government is allowing bad employers to dictate our direction and systematically build an unfair society steeped in the nightmare of racism," he said. 

“Every time an employer gets away with exploiting migrant workers two negative consequences ensue.  First, there is the shameful unfairness against a vulnerable worker but secondly a climate of fear and distrust is built up amongst Irish workers who – in the wake of Irish Ferries, GAMA, Doyle Concrete, Moneypoint etc  – think ‘am I next?’

“In over five years of campaigning for the rights of migrant workers I have never seen attitudes by Irish workers more negative and insecure than they are now.  Is it any wonder? Our Government has failed dismally to move against even the most shocking cases of exploitation and our employer organisations, rather than upholding the decent standards practised by most of their members, have made excuses for and defended the indefensible.

“The lessons of history and the experience of other countries should have taught us that the most fertile breeding ground for racism and hatred is insecurity and fear – in this case fears that “competitiveness” will be used as an excuse to whittle away even the most minor advance above the legal minimum.

“Equally how can we be so blind as to allow more and more sectors of the economy to be almost exclusively populated by low paid migrants?  Do we not see the trouble we are storing up for ourselves?

“There has been much talk recently about the phoney distinction between ‘job displacement’ and ‘job replacement’ but the outcome is the same in either case, that is, migrant workers being increasingly expected to work for less than their Irish counterparts simply because they are less able to defend themselves and demand equality.

“The Government should commit itself resolutely to defending and implementing decent standards in our workplaces, not only because we owe it to the vulnerable workers who come here seeking a living, not only to stop good employers and good standards being rendered unsustainable competitively, but also because we owe it to future generations not to allow a two tier society to be built and not to allow fear and insecurity to become the breeding grounds of racism. 





Previous and Next: DECENTRALISATION | HEALTH SERVICES