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10 September 2009 Voters assessing Media attempts to ridicule Cóirs minimum wage poster should consider the case of the Turkish construction giant GAMA: only 5 years ago the company employed Turkish workers on Irish construction projects for as little as €2.20 per hour!
Migrant workers were required to work up to 80 hours weekly and were housed in prefab camps provided by GAMA.
Ultimately, back pay was issued due to strikes by Turkish & Irish workers and because GAMA realised that a report from the Department of Labour's inspectorate was steering it towards significant trouble with the Garda fraud squad and the Irish Revenue Commissioner.
It was never established, however, that the wages were illegal and subsequently the 2008 Rüffert case* would indicate that such companies were and are within their rights to employ people under such conditions of pay. Crucially, the Lisbon treaty, under Protocol 27 copperfastens those rights.
Furthermore GAMA and similar companies require Government-issued permits to employ workers from outside the European Economic Area. Post Lisbon, workers from 'markets' such as accession states Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey would be potentially available, without permits, for hire and relocation to Ireland at their respective minimum hourly rates of €0.91, €0.71 & €1.70.
GAMA, who's Irish arm registered losses of €56 million in 2009, had their permit to employ Turkish workers in Ireland revoked because of the 2005 furore. They must be anxiously awaiting a development such as Lisbon which could see them return to the profitability enjoyed here pre-2005.
*The Court found that a Polish subcontractor operating in Germany was entitled to pay his workers less than half the agreed German minimum wage for the construction sector, because the right to provide unrestricted services took priority over collective wage agreements.
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