ICTU calls for an increase of the minimum wage by €2

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has called for the national minimum wage to be increased in January 2024 by €2, which would bring the the hourly rate to €13.30.

In a submission to the Low Pay Commission, ICTU said such an increase would go a considerable distance to providing a decent standard of living for low paid workers.

Owen Reidy General Secretary of Congress said: "Low paid workers on the national minimum wage are hurting disproportionately in this cost of living crisis. We welcome the fact that the government is committed to moving to a national living wage but it needs to happen sooner. 

"The national minimum wage should rise to €13.30 in January 2024 and then increase by another €2 in January 2025. Increases to the NMW in 2021 and 2022 were well behind inflation hence the need for a more meaningful increase now. We have a tight labour market and work must pay particularly for the most vulnerable In this cost of living crisis. Previous government changes to the tax system have benefited middle and high-income earners and do not apply to the lowest-paid.
 
"Countries such as Germany significantly increased their national minimum wage recently, and the sky did not fall in!
Employers who will decry this call are in many instances the same employers who argued against the concept of a minimum wage two decades ago and there remains a route for those employers who genuinely cannot pay the wage to seek amelioration, Mr Reidy said.

ICTU also believes that reductions to the minimum wage on age grounds are ill-judged and outdated. "It is wrong that we pay adults a percentage of the national minimum wage," Mr Reidy said.

"If you are old enough to work you are old enough to earn the full minimum wage and apprenticeships should no longer be excluded from the national minimum wage," he added.

"Young workers have been let down by society and our economy. They are in many instances in precarious low-paid work and are all but excluded from the housing and rental market given the immense housing crisis we are living through. Getting to the real living wage as envisaged by the recently agreed Adequate Minimum Wages Directive by 2025 is the minimum low paid and younger workers should expect," said Mr Reidy.

In its proposals, ICTU said the raising of the minimum wage would provide an increase in earnings consistent with the projected increase in earnings in the economy in general.

However, it added that the raise will not in any way contribute to a higher rate of unemployment or a reduction in
employment and will not undermine the competitiveness of the economy as a whole.

It outlined in its proposal that the increase is consistent with provisions of the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages.