SUPERMAC’S ON Dublin’s O’Connell Street was the scene of a protest by migrant workers this week.
The Restaurant Workers Action Group, established by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI), was campaigning against a legal challenge to set wages in the restaurant industry made by the Quick Service Food Alliance, which includes a number of fast-food chains and independently-run cafés.
The MRCI said that while Supermac’s saw its pre-tax profits quadruple last year, it was joining calls for the reduction of worker protections, including a €1-per-hour cut in the national minimum wage, with would weaken standards laid out in the Joint Labour Committee system which sets wages for the restaurant industry.
Many restaurant workers have already seen their hours cut and are struggling to survive, the MCRI added. Gul Gencoglu, a restaurant worker in Naas, explained the hardship these proposed changes would cause.
“If my wages were cut, I would not be able to pay my rent. I would have no choice but to turn to social welfare for assistance,” he said. “This is not what I want. I want to work. I want to have decent conditions. I don’t want anything more than that.”
“We have heard from hundreds of restaurant workers reporting unfair treatment and conditions of exploitation over the years,” said MRCI director Siobhán O’Donoghue. “Yet restaurants like Supermac’s are looking for a reduction in wages and protections for workers.
“The restaurant industry is driving an agenda that is bad for low-wage workers and bad for Ireland. This challenge is not about saving jobs. It is about cutting workers’ wages and increasing profits.”
In response, Supermac’s issued a statement from the Quick Service Food Alliance, which stated: “This case is not about lowering conditions of employment, but challenging the method by which those rates and conditions are set, which is unfair, arbitrary and unconstitutional in the present format.”
The statement said its members “are committed to fair pay and conditions” for workers but are “also committed to fairness and transparency in how minimum rates and conditions are set”. It said the legal challenge is aimed at keeping businesses viable.
