THE ENFORCEMENT of a minimum wage of almost €20 an hour for work on Sundays is likely to force the closure of hundreds of hotels, cafés, restaurants and pubs in the new year, Fine Gael has warned.
Dr Leo Varadkar, the party’s spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, said this would result in the loss of “thousands of jobs”.
However a spokesman for Siptu said his comments were “another example of Fine Gael’s conversion to tooth-and-claw” capitalism.
“These agreements are not mandatory: they are entered into voluntarily by employers and unions,” the Siptu spokesman added.
Dr Varadkar said: “The minimum rate applies to all work done on Sundays even if the employee concerned only works on Sunday. It is not an overtime rate.
“The rate applies to all catering establishments outside of Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire and all hotels outside Dublin city, Cork City and Dún Laoghaire.”
In the catering and hotel trade, Dr Varadkar added, terms and conditions for employees were governed by employment regulation orders.
These orders are drawn up by joint labour committees made up of representatives of employers and employees. Once an agreement is made it is sent to the Labour Court. If the Labour Court approves, it then becomes the law.
Dr Varadkar said: “Since the establishment [in February 2007] of the National Employment Rights Authority [Nera] , there has been a flurry of inspections enforcing these obligations – frequently on small cafés, restaurants or pubs which simply were unaware of their obligations.”
The Siptu spokesman said: “We believe Nera is doing a very good job. It is simply enforcing the law, which apparently a great many employers have not been adhering to.”
Dr Varadkar said: “Sunday is one of the busiest days for hotels and restaurants but many have now stopped serving Sunday lunch as they cannot turn a profit when faced with these high costs.
“I am calling on Siptu and the various groups representing employers (Ibec, the Irish Hotels Federation, the Vintners Federation and the Restaurant Association) to come together and to amend this employment regulation before more businesses and jobs are lost.”
