SALARY DATA in the Irish manufacturing sector shows wages are still falling for production staff while earnings at management level continue to increase.
Trade union Unite has claimed that clerical and production workers’ pay is being cut, not to reduce overall pay costs, but rather to subsidise significant pay increases for management staff.
The Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) recent publication, Earnings and Labour Costs Survey, showed total wages increased in the manufacturing sector by 2.7 per cent and almost 7 per cent for management. However, clerical and production workers saw their hourly earnings fall by 2.3 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.
Unite has accused Irish management of profiteering based on these findings. The CSO data on wage earnings of almost 200,000 workers in manufacturing shows that management awarded themselves a 6.5 per cent increase in the first quarter of 2009.
Earnings of clerical workers were cut by 2.3 per cent and production workers’ earnings were cut by just less than 1 per cent.
Management raises amount to €2.02 an hour, an annual increase of €4,000 at the top level while clerical workers had an annual cut of up to 48 cent an hour. The annual wage cuts for clerical workers came to €900 and production workers received cuts of almost €300 per annum.
The same figures show that management have awarded themselves an hourly bonus of €1.80 for the first three months of this year; an 88 per cent increase in bonus payments. Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said this was nothing short of profiteering at a time when Irish people were being asked to share the pain of the economic crisis. “Wage cuts on the factory floor and in the front line are being used not to keep the business afloat but to subsidise management increases.”
There were nine industrial disputes in progress in the first six months of 2009 involving 13,516 workers and a total of 14,643 days lost, according to the CSO.
Mr Kelly told The Irish Times: “The Government have been talking about cutting the minimum wage and getting rid of Christmas bonuses while business management is cutting salaries. What you are now seeing is a lot of people are not prepared to take this treatment anymore.”
The average annual salary of a manufacturing manager is €61,000. The average earnings for manufacturing clerical workers is €39,000 and €33,000 for production workers.