Today we had a talk about our rights as students and workers with a representative from Youth Connect. He told us about our right to having a student council elected by the students and also informed us about the benefits of having a student council, such as having our voices heard and letting the management know what we want to improve our school lives.
Next, we watched a short video highlighting our rights as students and young workers. It explained possible solutions to common problems that occur, such receiving minimum wages depending on your age and receiving a payslip every week or month.
The key facts we learnt today were:
• Everyone has the right to join a trade union
• Everyone has a right to a minimum wage (€6.06 for under 18 year olds and €8.65 for over 18 year old experienced workers)
• Everyone has a right to written terms & conditions (Contract)
• Everyone has a right to a payslip (as proof of legal employment)
• Everyone has a right to dignity & respect
• Everyone has a right to a safe working environment
• Everyone has a right to a break (30 minutes every 4 hours for under 16 year olds or 30 minutes every 4.5 hours for 16-17 year olds!)
We also learned about child labour. There are a staggering 250,000,000 child labourers in the world. That's one in seven children. But this is not purely just exploitation, some children have to work to keep food on the table. We learned about sub-Saharan africa and how it has a high poplulation density because people migrate from the Sahara.
We saw a video about three child labourers in the congo who were in a mine and worked all day with no safety equipment and little breaks. Their rights clearly weren't being respected but if the employer was forced to respect workers' rights they would go somewhere else where they wouldn't have laws to protect workers because it would be cheaper.
I found the talk to be very helpful because it answered a few questions I had about employing under 18s i.e. length of hours we could work and our minimum wage. He also informed us about how to join the ISSU and provided us with forms to register for a student card that can give us discounts in shops and cinemas.
I appreciate Ms. O’Toole organising the talk and would recommend that maybe the same talk could be given to next year’s TY students as it was very informative and very useful – especially if the students are planning to take business for the Leaving Cert!
To find out more, go to the Youth Connect website by clicking here
Text: ED & LB
Next, we watched a short video highlighting our rights as students and young workers. It explained possible solutions to common problems that occur, such receiving minimum wages depending on your age and receiving a payslip every week or month.
The key facts we learnt today were:
• Everyone has the right to join a trade union
• Everyone has a right to a minimum wage (€6.06 for under 18 year olds and €8.65 for over 18 year old experienced workers)
• Everyone has a right to written terms & conditions (Contract)
• Everyone has a right to a payslip (as proof of legal employment)
• Everyone has a right to dignity & respect
• Everyone has a right to a safe working environment
• Everyone has a right to a break (30 minutes every 4 hours for under 16 year olds or 30 minutes every 4.5 hours for 16-17 year olds!)
We also learned about child labour. There are a staggering 250,000,000 child labourers in the world. That's one in seven children. But this is not purely just exploitation, some children have to work to keep food on the table. We learned about sub-Saharan africa and how it has a high poplulation density because people migrate from the Sahara.
We saw a video about three child labourers in the congo who were in a mine and worked all day with no safety equipment and little breaks. Their rights clearly weren't being respected but if the employer was forced to respect workers' rights they would go somewhere else where they wouldn't have laws to protect workers because it would be cheaper.
I found the talk to be very helpful because it answered a few questions I had about employing under 18s i.e. length of hours we could work and our minimum wage. He also informed us about how to join the ISSU and provided us with forms to register for a student card that can give us discounts in shops and cinemas.
I appreciate Ms. O’Toole organising the talk and would recommend that maybe the same talk could be given to next year’s TY students as it was very informative and very useful – especially if the students are planning to take business for the Leaving Cert!
To find out more, go to the Youth Connect website by clicking here
Text: ED & LB