Friday, 9 April 2021

The 2021 KBS Spring Series continues on Tuesday 13th April at 1:00 pm with a seminar by Michelle O’Sullivan and Juliet MacMahon.  The seminar format is informal and interactive facilitating discussion and Q&A and will take place on MS Teams Click here to join the meeting  

Wage Theft in Modern Ireland: The case of Portuguese Migrants and the Limerick-Nenagh Motorway – Michelle O’Sullivan and Juliet MacMahon

Abstract: Wage theft refers to the non-payment of wages for work performed and there have been calls in recent years from civil society organisations and trade unions that Ireland needs stronger wage theft laws. This seminar presents a case study of large scale wage theft involving 180 Portuguese construction workers who were hired to help build the Limerick-Nenagh motorway between 2007 and 2009. Based on analyses of legal decisions and an in-depth interview with the workers’ legal team, we discuss the exploitative nature of the workers’ conditions while working on the site and we analyse the legal efforts made by the workers to recover unpaid wages over a 12-year period from 2008 to 2020. The case study illustrates the significant gaps in legal protections on wage theft and the tensions that exist between industrial relations and employment law mechanisms of employment regulation

All are warmly welcome, further information on the KBS Spring series can be found at https://www.ul.ie/business/research/research-events