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'Double Shame' of Immigrant: On Immigrant Exploitation

Metro Eireann, August 2007

By Catherine Reilly

SOME immigrants running businesses in Ireland are exploiting their own countrymen and women and must be more closely monitored, a trade unionist has warned.
Ray O’Reilly of the Independent Workers Union (IWU) said: “Ethnic groups are doing this to ethnic groups. The Chinese do it to the Chinese, the Poles do it to the Poles, the Romanians do it to the Romanians – and by the way, the Irish do it to the Irish.”
He said he has encountered significant numbers of immigrant employees, of both Irish and immigrant-run businesses, not receiving entitlements such as employment contracts and payslips.
“It’s unbelievable what’s going on out there,” O’Reilly said. “If they complain, they are told to get out.”

The trade unionist said many exploited workers were largely unprotected, due to the fact that an employee can only bring a case of unfair dismissal after having worked for a business for at least 12 months, and because other procedures can be time-consuming.
An immigrant source added that some businesses take on immigrants for “trials” and then illegally contend that the worker was not entitled to payment for this period.
“Plenty of young Polish people are looking for jobs. If somebody is as cunning as a fox, he can get free labour for the whole season, I would say,” the source said.
Recently, an immigrant-owned restaurant in Dublin was accused by a group of protesters, backed by the IWU, of exploiting an immigrant worker by not paying her for a day’s work, saying it was just a “trial”.
“She started at 12 noon and worked until 10pm. After two or three hours she asked about wages and payment. The manager was surprised and said they’d talk about it later,” one source said. “Other workers told her they are not paid for the first day.”
The source said that the manager was told by protesters that the alleged treatment of the worker was “double shame”, given that they were fellow nationals. Following the protest, the worker was paid.

The manager of the restaurant in question maintains that the worker had not brought all the necessary information for its accounts department and that as soon as she did, it was arranged for her to be paid.
Asked why there would be a protest if nothing was untoward, she said: “Maybe they were bored or had nothing better to do.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said interviews for speakers of foreign languages who have applied to become labour inspectors will begin next month.
“Languages required are Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, Russian or Chinese,” the spokesperson said. There are 10 posts available for foreign-language speakers.
At present, the Labour Inspectorate engages the services of interpreters when necessary. Asked if there has been any targeting of immigrant businesses, the spokesperson said: “In targeting businesses for spot checks, the Labour Inspectorate does not discriminate between Irish and non-Irish businesses.”

According to the spokesperson, there are 37 labour inspectors employed at present. “In accordance with the Government commitment under Towards 2016, the number of labour inspectors will be progressively increased to 90 by end 2007.”
The spokesperson added that the Employment Rights Information Unit has leaflets available for immigrant workers in Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Russian: “Over time it is planned to enhance these language services, including providing the employment rights website in a range of languages.”

This article appeared in the multicultural weekly Metro Eireann and was made available by the Forum on Migration and Communications (FOMACS).