Migrant workers leave Ireland’s unions all at sea

Any economist looking at the effect of Ireland's decision to open its labour market to workers from the ten new EU member states in 2004 would have to conclude that it was a correct choice to make. The economy has continued to grow at a rapid rate of 4% to 5% and the ready supply of workers to a small country of just four million people has pushed employment to record levels.

In the year to August 2005, 96,000 new jobs were created in Ireland bringing total employment above 2 million jobs for the first time in the history of the state, according to the Central Statistics Office. During this period the work force rose by 99,000, with migrant workers accounting for 40,000 of this number.

Ireland was one of only three of the older EU15 member states to allow the free movement of labour after enlargement (along with the UK and Sweden) and none of the fears that these workers would become a burden on the economy has materialised.

But as Europe approaches the two-year point since enlargement, when the old member states must notify the European Commission if they want to extend their labour restrictions, a debate is intensifying in Ireland over the consequences of the influx of labour.

There is no doubt that the changes for Ireland have been dramatic: over 150,000 people have registered for work in Ireland since April 2004, though not all have stayed on.

The majority came from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia, attracted by the abundance of jobs (unemployment in Ireland is the lowest in the EU at 4.3%) and a minimum wage of 7.65 euro an hour.

Recent comments by the former leader of the Labour Party Pat Rabbitte, who said the reintroduction of a work permit system needed to be looked at, have fuelled the debate. Employers, he argued, in certain sectors were hiring foreign workers instead of Irish and keeping them on low wages - even if above the minimum wage. "Displacement is going on in the meat factories and it is going on in the hospitality industry and it is going on in the building industry," he told the Irish Times.

The country's biggest trade union SIPTU backed his comments, saying wages in some sectors increased only marginally and have fallen in others because of this displacement.

Other commentators have dismissed this, saying foreign workers are simply taking the jobs after Irish workers have moved on to better-paid positions and therefore conditions are not worsening. The debate has caught the public's attention with an opinion poll in the Irish Times on Monday (23 January) showing 78% of voters want to reintroduce work permits for workers from new EU member states while 41% think there are enough foreign workers in Ireland and no more should be admitted.

Brendan McGinty, director of industrial relations and human resources in Ibec, the employers' organisation, said there had been a lot of "scaremongering and misinformation" on the issue. "There is no evidence displacement is taking place on the scale suggested by the trade unions," he said.

But a few high-profile examples are causing fear nonetheless. Irish Ferries last autumn proposed a redundancy package to its Irish workforce saying it wanted to "reflag" its vessels so it could avoid paying burdensome Irish wage rates and hire foreign workers instead. Management said it was a necessary move in a tough sector, which is competing with low-cost airlines. Though commentators have said this could only happen in certain sea-faring industries, unions fear this is exactly what will happen under the European Commission's proposed services directive, which goes before the European Parliament next month (February).

A number of cases of alleged exploitation have also emerged where employers have not respected Irish labour laws on minimum wages or conditions. Though the government and business sector stress that most employers are abiding by the law, there is a fear that some employers are exploiting the abundant supply of foreign workers - many of whom have poor English and little grasp of their rights. "Good employers won't be able to compete with the bad ones," says Manus O'Riordan, head of research at SIPTU. "This kind of exploitation threatens good employers, Irish workers and foreign workers."

Unions have fought these cases through the labour courts but say the government is not doing enough to uphold labour law. There are only 21 inspectors investigating workplace complaints in the entire country - fewer than the number of Irish dog wardens, as one union representative pointed out recently.

The government has said there are no plans to reverse its policy on an open market to EU labour and that the advice they have is that 50,000 workers will be needed every year to keep the economy growing.

In the absence of a change in policy, O'Riordan says SIPTU will be putting pressure on the government for greater enforcement of labour laws.

McGinty believes while it is good to debate these issues there needs to be a refocus on the facts. "Employment is growing, this is a good news story. There has been too much focus on the Irish Ferries case...We have to preserve flexibility in the market."

• Judith Crosbie is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

Major analysis feature on the debate in Ireland whether work permits for workers from the new Member States should be reintroduced. Ireland was only one of three Member States which in 2004 took the decision to completely open its labour market to workers from the ten new EU member states in 2004.