Motion no: 18
This conference notes the increase in construction activity and welcomes this growth as it should provide gainful employment for craft workers, general workers and our youth in the form of apprentices. However, the industry is awash with the Revenue Commissioners system of bogus self-employment/ERCT which inhibits workers in securing proper employment with proper terms and conditions and has almost secured the demise of the apprenticeship system on sites in Ireland. The Revenue Commissioners have failed the state by allowing this precarious form of employment to exist. Employers at their own free will are free to designate workers as bogus self-employed/ERCT workers. Workers cannot gain employment in the sector if they refuse to work under the bogus self-employed/ ERCT system. The Revenue system eliminates any statutory employment rights a worker would have and allows employers to use the old system of picking and choosing workers on a daily basis depending on who will work under sometimes horrid conditions.. We call upon the Executive Council to lobby government to abolish this practice as it leaves a trail of devastation in its path. The cost to the state is enormous in that the employers share of PRSI is not remitted as no employer exists. This Revenue system of bogus self-employed/ERCT must be abolished in order for workers to really benefit from industry and to pay their way in our society.
