Notes on the Front

I read Business and Finance magazine so it’s hard to depress me. But a recent post on Limerick Blogger, and many (though by no means all) of the subsequent comments, made for a joyless few minutes in front of the computer. The gist of all this was that workers in Argos are a greedy lot for seeking a 90 cent per hour pay rise; and the one-day industrial action that took place on Saturday last was one more example of irrational trade unionism that is plunging the country into further economic crisis. The conclusion: the Argos workers should shut up, get back to work and be thankful they have a job.

All, all, quite depressing.

Last Saturday, members of the union MANDATE went out on strike for one day at Argos, protesting over the company’s refusal to engage with them over an increase of 90 cents per hour. Employees in Argos are some of the lowest paid in the workforce, in an economy where low wages are endemic. That is why the industrial action by the Argos workers should not be under-estimated. In a sector that is difficult to organise, with a high proportion of part-time workers and staff turnover, suffering from some of the lowest levels of pay – it is all the more imperative that the Argos workers succeed. For if success could spill over to other enterprises in this sector it would give people their best chance to defeat low-wages and win for themselves something approximating a living wage.

Let’s do some background. Argos is the largest company of the UK-based Home Retail group which also includes Home Base. With 668 stores throughout the UK and Ireland, Argos has a strong profit-growth record.

Argos experienced a profit growth of 35% in the four year period. In their last reported year (Argos’s accounting year is end of March) the company increased profits by over 9%. In their 2007 half-yearly report profits again were up – by 27%. Here is a company in good shape.

This is of a piece. The retail sector is quite competitive, operating on relatively small margins. However, with the growth in consumer spending, it has been a good period for the more efficient retail companies. The CSO’s Annual Services Inquiry provides considerable data on wages and profits in the retail sector, in particular the non-specialised sector:

Wages in the non-specialised stores are nearly 25% below the average service sector wage (and this excludes the more prosperous financial sector). And, if anything, wages are falling further behind: service sector wages increased by nearly 20% in the three year period, while in Argos’ sector wages rose by less than 16%.

The CSO’s National Employment Survey gives us another insight into wages in the ‘Sales’ sector (unfortunately, the latest data is from 2003 – the CSO will be publishing more current data soon). The median wage is a particularly useful measurement. An average wage can gloss over inequalities in wage distribution. However the median wage is that point at which 50% of employees ear below, and 50% employees above.

Well over 50% of employees in the ‘Sales’ sector earn less than the EU low-pay threshold or, as the Council of Europe puts it, the ‘Threshold of Decency’ (the low-pay threshold is set at two-thirds of the average median wage – excluding part-time employed working less than 15 hours per week).

This doesn’t tell the full story, though. In the ‘Sales’ sector there are a considerable number of part-time employees (60%) and women (65%). These are the categories that are most at risk of low-pay.

This breakdown reveals the high levels of wage exploitation in the Sales sector. The union MANDATE claims that most of their members are receiving a little over €9 per hour. If €9.45 was the low-pay threshold in 2003, how much further have sales workers in Argos and other retail outlets fallen behind? By the union’s account, the vast bulk of such workers have fallen a lot further behind – especially women and part-timers.

Personally, I would have thought this strike was a slam-dunk in terms of general support from the public – if they knew all the facts. However, there are some bloggers and commentators intent on proving me wrong:

‘This is just greed. . . . Get back to work and be glad you are not one of the 2,000 people who have been made redundant in the last six months in this part of the country.’

‘I also think its greed, wage increases of 10% will push inflation up even further, also it will do people out of jobs, its the cost of labour in this country thats killing us and people still want more, this counrty is fu*ked because of the cost of wages here.’

‘Why don’t they look for another job that pays them the wage they’re looking for. If they’re being paid so badly it shoudn’t be hard to find a job that pays better and has better conditions.’

These comments exhibit ignorance on a number of levels:

• High wages? Our wage levels are below the EU average and we suffer from one of the highest levels of low-pay in the EU.
• Competitiveness? Wage rises at Argos will hardly impact on our export sectors which are engaged in international competition.
• Get a job in another retail company? If they’re all paying the same miserable rates, this is hardly an option.
• Inflation? Talk to the Energy Regulator, talk to the Government that let the property market rip loose and then fold.

But most of all, these comments (and there’s much much more on the blog) exhibit a profound lack of empathy with people who are working in a wide range of services that benefit all of us. Working in the supermarkets, the clothes stores, the off-licenses and local newsagent, the restaurants and pubs, the hotels, cleaning places of work, providing services that we take for granted but which are so important in our lives: most of us are not in a daily position to assist these people in a direct way but, at the least, when these providers of valuable services do attempt to win for themselves a small improvement to their living standards, we should support them and not cross their picket lines on a freezing December afternoon.

So it’s a tough fight at the best of times when retail workers – one of the weakest groups of workers in the economy – have to take on an employer who would rather fly in strike-breakers from another country than treat their employees here with some respect; when the full might of IBEC roundly condemns them and urges ICTU to put them ‘back in line’. Given these range of forces, it would be difficult for the Argos workers to win.

But the Argos workers have to fight another battle within an apathetic, and sometimes hostile, political culture as well. A political culture that has left empathy behind, which has corralled ourselves into ourselves, that promises all manner of wealth but to ourselves alone, and that only on conditions that suit the givers and not the receivers.

In today’s political culture we look out into the world and see only a mirror.

Without empathy, we are in danger of living in a lonely place.

That is the why the workers’ campaign at Argos is so important – to end the monstrous social inequity of low wages, to provide an example of collective action to fellow workers in the other low-paid occupations.

But as well: it is important in order to shake us out of ourselves, to teach us the liberating values of empathy and solidarity, to reconnect us with the ‘social’.

That is why the just cause of the Argos workers is about more than just 90 cents.

It is about all of us.