Non-EU workers have become the most vulnerable in the State since 10 new member-states joined the EU, a leading trade unionist has said.
Mr Anton McCabe, a member of SIPTU's anti-racism working group, said that since May 1st, there had been a significant increase in non-EU workers losing their jobs to be replaced with workers from the new EU states.
He called for Government monitoring of the trend.
Employers must secure a work permit, costing €500, to employ a person from outside the EU, but no permit is needed for EU employees. Permits also cost €500 to renew.
Mr McCabe said non-EU workers, particularly from south-east Asia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Romania and Africa, were being let go once permits expired. It was an issue in the meat and catering industries in particular.
"It's something that is progressively materialising," he said. "Employers can construct a situation, say business is slack, and let a worker go. Effectively it's constructive dismissal."
Calling for the establishment of regional committees within the social partnership framework, he said the movement of labour should be monitored.
"If an employer is dismissing people, for monetary gain, in order to employ someone else to do the same job, we would view that as constructive dismissal," he said.
"People working here from outside the EU are the most vulnerable workers in the country at the moment. I am hearing from Bulgarians, Romanians, Filipinos, that the whole atmosphere in the workplace has changed since May 1st. People are very worried. They don't even know if their employer has applied to have their permit renewed.
"Some may have been here four or five years, could have their families established here and their employer could just cut them loose." They could then face deportation, he said.
Figures from the Department of Social and Family Affairs earlier this month showed nearly 23,000 people from the new member-states had sought employment here since May 1st - an increase of 1,000 per cent on the first four months of the year.
Basing its calculations on the numbers of PPS numbers issued and records of the recipients' nationalities, the Department said some 11,000 people had arrived from Poland seeking work, along with nearly 5,000 from Lithuania and more than 2,000 each from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Stressing he was not against people coming here from the new EU states to seek work, Mr McCabe said the Government must ensure employers were not victimising one group of particularly vulnerable workers, for their own gain.
