Irish employees' attitudes towards migrant workers are more negative and insecure now than at any time in the past five years, a meeting on the issue was told yesterday.
Siptu regional secretary Mike Jennings claimed the Government was allowing "bad employers" to "systematically build an unfair society steeped in racism".
He told a meeting of non-Irish members of Siptu in Liberty Hall, Dublin, that Ireland was at a crossroads "between racism and harmony".
"In over five years of campaigning for the rights of migrant workers, I have never seen attitudes by Irish workers more negative and insecure than they are now," he said.
"Is it any wonder? Our Government has failed dismally to move against even the most shocking cases of exploitation, and our employer organisations . . . have made excuses for and defended the indefensible."
The Siptu meeting coincided with the joint launch at Liberty Hall of two trade union guides on dealing with racism. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has published Guidelines for Combating Racism and Planning for Diversity.
Siptu simultaneously launched its publication, Diversity in the Workplace - A Guide for Shop Stewards.
Siptu president Jack O'Connor said the union's approach was informed by the principle that every worker, "whether from Portlaoise or Poland, or Waterford or Warsaw, is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and to be properly paid for the work they do".
Siptu now had 16,000 members who were not of Irish nationality, Mr O'Connor added.
Ictu general secretary David Begg said 9 per cent of the labour force was now made up of non-Irish workers.
This represented a dramatic change in Ireland within a period of 18 months to two years, whereas in Germany similar changes had taken 30 years.
National Action Plan Against Racism chairwoman Lucy Gaffney said she hoped the two publications would not be left lying around the workplace, but would be the basis for active policies.
