SIPTU election: Derwin challenges IBEC on Minimum Wage

national | politics / elections | press release

Tuesday February 03, 2004 14:47

by Des Derwin

SIPTU Vice President candidate asks how can IBEC say Minimum Wage too high.

Dublin Shop Steward Challenges Employers Association To Live on Minimum Wage.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3rd February 2004

SIPTU Vice President candidate asks how can IBEC say Minimum Wage too high.

Dublin Shop Steward Challenges Employers Association To Live on Minimum Wage.

SIPTU Candidate calls for a National Minimum wage of €8 per hour.

Des Derwin, President of SIPTU’s Electronics and Engineering Branch, and candidate in the current ballot for Vice President of SIPTU, today challenged Pat Delaney, director of IBEC’s Small Firms Association, to live for a week on €273, the Minimum Wage for 39 hours. He said,

“Is Pat Delaney serious? So this is what IBEC means by social partnership. The day after the National Minimum Wage was raised from €6.35 an hour to €7, he says on radio that the rate is too high. Now let him live on €273 for a week of 39 hours. He couldn’t pay his mortgage for a start! As a factory worker who earns €8.56 an hour plus €5.71 a week service pay, I dare Pat Delaney to tell us his income. Then let him call on people to work for, and live on, less than €7 an hour!”

“Pat Delaney says that our Minimum Wage is the highest in Europe. Does he not know that our prices are almost the highest in Europe? While IBEC wants some workers to live on less than €7 an hour, the top category of executives in the largest companies were on average annual pay of €386,000 last April, up from €249,000 the previous year. The Taoiseach’s salary has just increased to €222,000.”

Derwin is calling for the National Minimum Wage for be raised to €8 an hour, saying that the rate just ended was the rate sought by the ICTU in 1998, and that with the entry of 10 new countries into the EU an adequate Minimum Wage is essential to protect new workers and the minimum rates of workers here.

He thinks that union leaders should be paid workers’ wages not executives salaries. He says,

“The present salary of SIPTU General Officers is over €100,000. If elected I will accept only the average industrial wage. And, to be clear, that means leaving the money with the Union, not taking it and giving it to causes of my choice.”

Balloting in the election for Vice President of SIPTU began last week and continues until 20th February. Derwin is running against the “mainstream” candidate, Dublin Regional Secretary, Brendan Hayes.

Derwin wants to see combined and determined action in CIE and Aer Rianta until the Minister’s plans to split them up are dropped. “A forceful stand against privatisation is needed, not just ‘guarantees’ in privatised companies”.

Derwin is confident he will get a respectable vote. He feels his position as a shop floor worker gives him a unique viewpoint:

“I think I am more in touch with the general membership. Every day I work next to them. I hear their concerns, indeed I share most of them, and therefore if elected I shall be best equipped to represent them.”

For more information contact:

Des Derwin ph: 01-8375760 or 087 6229686 dderwin@gofree.indigo.ie

About Des Derwin

Who Is He ?

Des Derwin has been a member of SIPTU and the ITGWU since 1973. He works as an Assembly General Operative at a plastics factory in Finglas, Dublin, where he is a shop steward. He has a wide and varied industrial, negotiating and administrative experience gained from thirty years working in industry and over twenty-five serving on the Committee of the Electronics and Engineering Branch. He is familiar with the inner workings of SIPTU. Des is currently:

· President of the Electronics and Engineering Branch.
· A member of the Dublin Regional Executive Committee of the Union
· On the executive committee of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions.

Derwin has been an active delegate to successive National Conferences. He stood in the 2002 election for SIPTU General Secretary when he received 7% of the poll. He is not a member of any political party.

What Does He Stand For?

· An end to social partnership and a return to trade union independence.

· Democratic control of SIPTU by its members. The restoration of the members’ vote for the election of the National Executive Council, taken away in 2001. Change in the Rule Book to allow Branches, and not just a small Rules Revision Committee, to propose amendments to the Rules.

· No use of Benchmarking to police individual members and groups.

· An end to Greenfield, no-strike deals, such as that recently agreed with the LUAS operator.

· A National Minimum Wage of €8 per hour.

· Action to bridge the gap between the average earnings of women and men.

· Statutory union recognition and a major recruitment drive.

· A strong SIPTU and ICTU campaign for improved health and social services and against health and social welfare cuts and double-taxation service charges.

· An increase in statutory redundancy payments to three weeks per year of service.

· Forceful and clear opposition to privatisation, not just seeking ‘guarantees’ in privatised companies. Combined and determined action in CIE and Aer Rianta until the Minister’s plans to split them up are dropped.

· Union support for bin workers who wish to collect all rubbish bins, including the bins of those protesting against the bin tax.

Note: REMEMBER FUNDRAISING QUIZ
THURSDAY 5th Feb @ 9.00
TEACHERS CLUB
PARNELL SQUARE, DUBLIN

Note later start. Room occupied until nine! (Wouldn't happen in Liberty Hall. Not 'alf!)