IBEC’s Turlough O’Sullivan has an unfortunate ideological quirk but it is treatable.  It seems he can’t say the words ‘low-paid’ without inserting ’so-called’ before them.  In fact, he has trouble using the actual words ‘low-paid’, only managing to say ‘lower-paid’. Still, his condition dictates that he still inserts ’so-called’ before them.  Mark Hennessy describes this condition in an article on the resurection of the pay talks:

‘However, he (Turlough) again ruled out any possibility that employers could grant above-par pay rises to lower-paid workers, or “so-called lower-paid workers”, as he described them.’

Ah, so-called.  I think its incumbent upon all of us to assist Turlough in dealing with his quirk.  It will be a difficult therapy, but one which we will all benefit from.

Let’s dispense with the use of ‘lower-paid’; is a no-brainer.  All of us are lower-paid compared to someone else.  Even Michael O’Leary is ‘lower-paid’ compared to other CEOs.  The question is - does ‘lower-paid’ ever descend into ‘low-paid’ and, therefore, into unacceptable living conditions.

We are fortunate to have a working definition of ‘low-pay’ from the OECD.  They calculate it as two-thirds of the median wage.  The median wage is different from the ’average’ wage.  The former calculates the wage level at which 50 percent of employees are above that level and 50 percent below.

So how does Ireland fare in the European low-pay stakes?  Badly.  Very badly.  The recent OECD employment database shows that Ireland is the second highest when it comes to low-pay, just behind the UK (our partner in the Anglo-American economic model in Europe).  According to the OECD, nearly 18 percent, or one-in-five employees, are officially low-paid.  Compare that to Belgium (7.3) or Finland (7.0) or Sweden (6.4).  We should be getting a trophy or something.

Again, we’re fortunate that our own CSO covers this topic.  In 2006, the median wage was €15.39 per hour.  50 percent of all employees earned below this amount.  Using the OECD’s definition, therefore, anyone earning below €10.16 per hour is officially ‘low-paid’.  But this only tells part of the story.

In the private sector, over 22 percent of employees are officially low-paid.  But this clearly underestimates the numbers, for the CSO excludes agricultural, fishery and forestry workers - a small category but one which is full of low-paid and minimum wage workers.  It also excludes enterprises with less than three workers - and the smaller the workplace the lower the wage.

If one included these categories, we would probably find the level of low-paid inching up towards 25 percent - or one-in-four.  That’s a big, big number of people to overlook, ignore or dismiss (about 275,000).

Let’s get beyond percentages and talk hard Euros and cents.  Nearly one-in-four employees in the private sector earns, on a full-time basis, €20,580 per year.  After tax and PRSI they are expected to pay housing costs, ESB and gas, food, transport costs, the odd shirt and skirt; lord help them if they have children, get sick, or have to look after a family member.   This is not so-called, this is real-called.

And just in case you think that once you get out of the low-pay bracket you are in clover, 50 percent of private sector workers earn less than €29,000 on a full-time basis.  That’s substantially less than the average industrial wage.  That may not be official low-pay, but it ain’t great.

And it’s getting worse.  Patricia Callan of the Small Firms Association is going around assuring everyone that private sector employers are putting it up to their workers and cutting their pay.  This will not doubt assist Ireland’s triumphant rise up the European low-paid league tables.

So hopefully this will help Turlough over his ideological quirk.  But I doubt bare numbers are sufficient.  He could, of course, try living on this income for a month but there’s little chance of that.  So let’s all surround him in a fraternal embrace and repeat very very slowly: loooow (as in woe) paaaiiid (as in made), loow paaiid, low paid, low paid, low paid.  Repeat these words and these words only (no adjectives like ’so-called’, ‘alleged’, ‘’supposed’, ’suspected’).  Just loooow paaaaiiiid.

Say it long enough and he’ll get the hang of it and start saying it himself.  Then we can welcome Turlough O’Sullivan back to the real world.

NOTE:  For an excellent study of low-pay in the retail sector, see Mandate’s End Low Pay.