National Minimum Wage for Young Workers - The Labour Party
The initial hourly rate was €5.58, and it made an immediate impact.
163,000 workers, mainly women and under 25s, received a pay rise on April Fool’s Day 2000. 80,000 workers received an increase of at least £1, an almost 25% payrise overnight.
The National Minimum Wage set a precedent. It challenged an unregulated labour market where employers could choose to pay workers, adults, less than £3 per hour.
The introduction of the minimum wage was a transformative experience for the Irish economy. It lifted not only individuals, but whole cohorts of workers in retail, personal services, agriculture, fishing & forestry out of poverty wages.
But the job was never finished. Apprentices and Interns were excluded, while Young People benefitted from lower rates.
Today, a person under 18 years is entitled to a wage set at €9.45, 70% of the Minimum Wage, an 18-year-old 80% and a 19-year-old 90% of the full rate.
Craft Apprentices can fare worse, with rates of €7.67, just 30% of the Adult Minimum Wage, legally allowed for First Year Apprentices. This rises to €11.50 for Second Year Apprentices before reaching the Minimum Wage rate in third year.
Interns fare even worse, and while a lot of work has been done on tightening up on the prevalence of unpaid internships, the fact is that they are still out there.
This December I, along with fellow Labour Senator, Laura Harmon introduced into the Seanad legislation extending the mandatory payment of the National Minimum Wage to Young People, Apprentices and Interns.
This Bill embodies our core values – equality and fairness in the world of work. These values brought me into Trade Union activism, politics, and the Labour Party. Equality and Fairness demand that we extend the protections of the National Minimum Wage to these 3 vulnerable groups.
Academic studies, and our own experience since 2000 have shown that fears that the introduction of a minimum wage would negatively impact upon employment rates were unfounded. There is no reason to think that this new legislation will have a negative impact on younger workers now.
Better wages are the most effective way of challenging poverty and inequality. 857 babies were born to teenage parents in 2022, that is 1.5% of all births. Childhood poverty is something which has a lifelong and multi-generational impact, especially in communities already experiencing poverty. We need to challenge childhood poverty wherever and whenever we can. Young parents deserve to earn a decent wage.
Around 20% of Apprentices drop out of Apprenticeships in the first 3 years, many citing low pay as their reason. We have an acute shortage of housing, serious deficiencies in infrastructure, and a chronic shortage of skilled craftsmen and women. We need to address these shortages and deficiencies in every way we can.
This Bill completes the work started in 2000.
Increasing pay at the bottom positively impacts the least well off. It does not negatively impact those who already receive more.
Nobody loses with this legislation.
Everybody wins.
– Senator Nessa Cosgrove
Labour Spokesperson for Workers’ Rights