From top: The Launch of Generation Precarious yesterday; Paul Murphy

Varadkar’s Republic of Opportunity sloganeering hides the reality of a Republic of Precarity for many workers.

The process of increasing ‘flexibility’ in the labour market has intensified over the course of the crisis and its aftermath. It is yet another indication of Naomi Klein’s ‘shock doctrine‘ in action – with a crisis of neo-liberal capitalism used to further embed that model.

Precarity can be an ambiguous concept, allowing the government and right-wing economists to deny any expansion. However, it can be defined broadly as employment “which is insecure, uncertain or unpredictable from the point of view of the worker.” (ICTU report: ‘Insecure and Uncertain’: Precarious Work in the Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland).

It should be indisputable that precarious work in its myriad of different forms has increased dramatically in Ireland, as it has in western Europe and the US in the context of the economic crisis.

It takes multiple forms, from the ‘bogus self-employment’ to the widespread existence of zero hour or ‘if and when’ contract workers, as well as the spread of temporary and part-time contracts and agency workers and unpaid internships.

Side by side with that, corporate profits have gone through the roof – having doubled from €75 billion in Ireland in 2011 to €150 billion in 2015. These come at the expense of workers working harder and longer for the same wages.

The ‘gig’ or ‘contingent’ economy is presented by right-wing economists as being an opportunity for freedom and choice. In reality, it is a tool for reducing the cost of labour and increasing the rate of exploitation by denying legal rights that employees with permanent contracts would be entitled to. It represents a partial return to early 20th century working conditions.

A number of useful reports and studies have recently been published into the expansion of precarious employment in Ireland by TASC and ICTU. Some of the key features which emerge are the fact 12% of workers are now self-employed with no employees – in other words, likely to be effectively in bogus self-employment.

Some 7% of the labour force is working in temporary employment, with half of them (70,500 workers) in temporary employment because they could not find permanent work – a 179% increase on 2008.

Over the course of the crisis, there has been a significant increase in the number of workers who are employed part-time – with 456,200 workers, almost a quarter of all employees.

The fact that there are around 110,000 less workers in full-time permanent employemnt than there were in 2008 is a striking illustration of the changed nature of the labour market.

Just over 8% of workers usual hours varied considerably from week to week or month to month, meaning they probably have zero hour, low hour or if and when contracts.

The evidence illustrates that these precarious contracts are concentrated in certain sectors – such as hospitality, care work as well as construction. It is disproportionally young workers and women who are affected.

These statistics translated into the daily lives of workers means massive instability in people’s lives. It means an inability to plan for next week, nevermind next month, because you don’t know what hours you’ll be working.

It means being unable to get a mortgage because you can’t point to a guaranteed number of hours and income. It means a significant increase in mental health problems caused by such an unstable existence.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The historic #McStrike in Britain won the biggest pay rise for workers at the company in 10 years. Deliveroo workers, who are a classic example of ‘bogus self-employment’ have also been getting organised.

Six years ago, we launched the ScamBridge campaign and website, which contributed to the public awareness of the reality of JobBridge exploitation which ultimately led to the scheme being abandoned by the government.

Yesterday, we launched Generation Precarious with the aim of doing something similar to tackle the much bigger issue of precarious work.

The campaign has a two track strategy.

Firstly, to raise awareness of the reality of precarious work and the impact it has on people’s lives and to push for government action to eliminate precarious work, through the banning of zero hour and ‘if and when’ contracts, the introduction of ‘fair scheduling’ and for the outlawing of all unpaid work along with a series of other demands.

Secondly, to highlight and expose particularly exploitative employers, as we did with ScamBridge. We want people to contact us with their stories.

In the coming weeks, we will be selecting our first employer to target for protest to expose their treatment of workers. Crucially, we will be working with those affected by precarious work to try to assist them getting organised into trade unions, which is ultimately the best way to ensure better working conditions.

Paul Murphy is Solidarity TD for Dublin South West and member of the Socialist Party. Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulmurphy_TD

Generation Precarious

From top: a still from a Catholic sex education video made for an Irish audience in the 1980s; Paul Murphy

“We were basically told we should wait until marriage to have sex. To emphasize this point, the teacher took a piece of sellotape, stuck it to her hand, ripped it off and showed us the bits of dirt now stuck to it.

She likened this piece of tape to each girl, and her sticking the tape down to her skin as each boy the girl kissed. She kept repeating this action, basically showing us that kissing many boys made you very dirty.

When the tape lost its stickiness, she proudly used this as an example of how we became emotionally unable to ‘stick’ to one person if we keep ‘kissing all these different boys’. I found this absolutely unacceptable and honestly am still shocked that I was actually told this.”

Sarah

Paul Murphy TD writes:

When Solidarity announced we were proposing a Bill for Objective Sex Education, Sarah was just one school student of many who emailed us about the backward nature of the sex education they received.

Niamh, another student, explained that:

“I vividly remember the teacher referring to contraception as ‘the C-word’. She didn’t like saying it in the classroom as it was against the ethos of the school.”

This anecdotal evidence of entirely inadequate sex education chimes with recently published research by NUI Galway on ‘Smart Consent‘.

An online survey completed by over 1,000 NUIG students on consent found that 76% of students believed their school sex education “left out a lot of important and crucial information” and only 23.8% declared themselves satisfied with the sex education they received.

When you read the ‘Guidelines on Relationships and Sexuality Education‘ issued by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, (it is little wonder that our sex education remains in the dark ages.

It sums up its approach as follows:

“Any attempt to communicate ‘the facts of life’ as mere facts without reference to the religious and moral dimensions of human sexuality and without reference to the pupil’s need to grow in maturity would be a distortion. Scientific facts are not the whole truth about human sexuality and reproduction.”

The sex education that most school students receive is grossly distorted by the religious ethos of their schools. In many cases, Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) is provided by outside religious agencies, including Accord, a Catholic organisation which refuses to deal with same-sex couples in marriage counselling.

The result is that often LGBTQ+ people are not mentioned, contraception is barely referenced and consent does not feature. The so-called ‘gatekeepers’ model is taught in many schools, where girls are warned about sexual activity and boys get no real education on consent.

This contrasts starkly with the attitudes of young people, where there has been an awakening in awareness of the problem of sexual harassment and a real understanding of consent as something that needs to be explicit, mutual and continuous.

This was seen in the last weeks on the streets across Ireland with big protests about how rape victims are treated in the legal system. In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the #WeStandWithHer protests, the Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, announced a review of sex education.

However, importantly, he did not say that it would remove religious ethos from the teaching of RSE, which is a central problem. There is no point in reviewing how it is taught if schools will still be allowed to ignore it if it doesn’t fit their religious views!

The Solidarity ‘Provision of Objective Sex Education’ Bill would remove those religious barriers from the teaching of relationships and sex based on mutual respect.

It will be debated today and if it becomes law, would ensure that all school students receive factual and objective sex education.

This would be sex education which has consent at its core, which teaches about methods of contraception and the termination of pregnancy, is not gender normative and is LGBTQ+ positive.

The Bill is being supported by a wide range of organisations including the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, National Women’s Council of Ireland, Shout Out, BelongTo, USI, Irish Family Planning Association, Atheist Ireland, LadyBirds, and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.

Because of pressure on the establishment parties at this stime, the indications are that the government is not opposing the Bill and it will pass second stage.

However, those who want to retain religious control over our schools and prevent young people being educated about sex will try to resist this change. The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association has come out in opposition to the Bill and incredibly claims that the current sex education programme is “working quite well”!

The next step of the battle will be ensure that the government doesn’t leave it languishing in committee, as they have done with so many opposition bills and it actually progresses to become law that transforms our sex education.

Paul Murphy is Solidarity TD for Dublin South West and member of the Socialist Party. Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulmurphy_TD

Meanwhile…

The #SexEdBill is being debated on Wednesday 4pm-6pm. So far media seem to be avoiding mentioning it despite it being very important Bill that can open the door to the best possible sex education for our young people. #dubw #Dail

— Ruth Coppinger TD (@RuthCoppingerTD) April 17, 2018

Come on media.

Get your finger out busy.