WORKERS ARE not disposable goods and deserve respect and protection in the workplace, the Archbishop of Dublin said yesterday.
Speaking at the Worker’s Memorial Day held by the Irish Congress of Trades Unions yesterday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said people are at the heart of a modern economy and should be treated as such. “Workers are not disposable goods. Their protection can never be subordinated to exclusively economic goals and profit,” he said, adding that if economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person, it inevitably ends up by alienating and oppressing the worker and impoverishing society.
“Safe workplaces require norms that must be respected. But safe workplaces are more. Workers are never just employees. They are always people and must enjoy the respect and protection that people deserve,” he said.
Breffni McGuinness of the Irish Hospice Foundation said more needed to be done in workplaces to support workers who are bereaved. Mr McGuinness said a survey of 34 Irish companies and organisations showed that 88 per cent did not have bereavement policies or guidelines for employees.
He said that in Ireland and the EU there is no official entitlement to bereavement leave for workers and it is entirely at the discretion of the employer.
“While there were many examples of good local practice . . . they needed to ask why so little was reflected in official policies,” he said.