In the fast-moving world of media publishing, as every working journalist and editor will now, headlines really matter. The non-stop vying for audience attention puts pressure on publishers to find the right words to ensure accuracy and balance while remaining interesting – all within a handful of words that convey the gist of what’s in the article.
But what about reading beyond the headline? Forbes contributor Jayson DeMers once wrote that: “In a read article, headlines are one of the most powerful contributors to performance, and in a non-read article, it’s the only contributor to performance. As a result, headlines have become almost like articles in and of themselves.” Some studies suggest that only a minority of readers read any news article to the very end, and that a skim of what’s under the headline may be more the norm for the average consumer of news.
This all came to mind when I noticed that the Irish Times had reported on a case before the Workplace Relations Commission where a man who worked up to 115 hours a week and had to “beg his employer for occasional payments” was rightly awarded €71,000.
From the Irish Times’ report on the case:
He was awarded more than €71,000 by the WRC after adjudication officer Úna Glazier-Farmer accepted that “both intimidation and financial threats were made against his family if he did not work for the respondent”.
The man gave evidence at a WRC hearing that despite being listed on formal documentation as a chef de partie, he usually worked as a retail assistant at the Solo Mobile phone shop in Limerick city during the day and at the Mixed Spice 3 food outlet, owned by the same employer, in the evenings.
He said he at times worked from 8am to 6pm in the shop for six days a week and then until 2am or 3am every night at the restaurant.
The man said that he had also been required at times to work at two other businesses, Tech More Gadgets in Templemore, and Five Star Kebab and Pizza in Castleconnell.
The applicant, who was obviously being horribly exploited, came from Pakistan, and his case was supported by the taxpayer-funded Migrants Rights Centre of Ireland who welcomed the decision, and said the number of people coming to it for help with regard to exploitation in the workforce “has doubled”.
What was curiously absent from the reporting as it appeared in the Irish Times, however, was the nationality of the employer who treated this migrant worker so badly, though we were told that the respondent in the case was Broz Asset Private Ltd, “whose sole director at the time was listed as Muhammad Adnan Yousaf”.
Was this the Limerick Yousafs of Castleconnell perhaps, or Templemore, towns where other business owned by the Broz Asset director, and where the unfortunate migrant employee was forced to work were located?
Not at all. A search of the Companies Registration Office (hat-tip to my colleague Matt Treacy) revealed that, in fact, Muhammad Adnan Yousaf is also a Pakistani national. This case then, was not one of the awful Irish treating a new arrival badly, but actually one where a migrant employee was being appallingly exploited by a migrant employer. Not just exploited in fact, but intimidated and threatened.
Further searching reveal other such stories in relation to the cases coming before the WRC supported by the MRCI and reported on by the Irish Times and other media outlets. Details in regard to the employer often seem to be buried in the story, and the nationality of the employer is frequently not mentioned.
“‘Employers can be very creative’: exploitation of migrant workers on the rise”, was the headline that emblazoned a January interview by the Irish Times with MRCI co-director Bill Abom. He points to two cases where employers were exploiting workers and were assisted by the MRCI.
The cases Abom highlights were “the widely reported cases taken on behalf of restaurant workers Suman Bhurtel and Sharanjeet Kaur”. Both had pretty terrible employment experiences after coming to this country. It is disgusting to think that any employer can abuse people’s basic rights in this way.
Bhurtel, from Nepal, was a chef employed by Chicken Castle trading as Club Chicken on Main Street, Castleisland, Co Kerry. He was found not to have been paid Sunday or other premiums, not to have got days off or holidays to which he was entitled, and to have at one stage worked 48 days in a row, all for a salary of €30,000. He was awarded €23,130 for various breaches of legislation.
Kaur, an Indian national, was recruited from Malaysia in 2020 by Bombay Bhappa Ltd, trading as Bombay House in Skerries, Co Dublin, for what was billed as “a life-changing experience for her and her children”. She ended up working excessively long hours at while living in accommodation she had to share with one female and five male co-workers.
She had been required to pay €17,000 in advance before travelling to Ireland, money borrowed by her father, but told the hearing of being sexually harassed by co-workers and underpaid by her employer, who initially gave her €200 a week but then increased it to €500 while requiring her to return €290 in cash. The WRC found Ms Kaur’s effective hourly rate to be €4.46 an hour until she was fired just over a year after arriving. She was awarded €143,268 last April but, like Bhurtel, has yet to see any of the money.
So who owns Chicken Castle in Castleisland, Co Kerry? Surat Singh, a Portuguese national with a surname very commonly found in India.
And Bombay Bhappa in Skerries? The company director is Bhappa Singh – who the WRC heard had told Ms Kuar that an employment permit would cost €17,000 and that her father in India had taken out a loan and paid cash to Mr Singh to pay for it. WRC Adjudicator Elizabeth Spelman found that Ms Kaur’s uncontested evidence was “a distressing catalogue of discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment which she suffered on [an] almost daily basis for the entirety of her employment”.
Curiously, while the MRCI has written up the Bhurtel case on its website, and correctly describes it as “gross breach” of the man’s employment rights, the owner of the company is not named.
Why does any of this matter? Firstly, because isn’t it arguable that the omission or under-reporting of the nationality or heritage of employers found to be exploiting workers in Ireland means the full picture is not being reported? Secondly, because failing to recognise a significant cause or source of exploitation is likely to lead to a failure to adequately address it.
India and Pakistan, for example, are culturally very different from Ireland in terms of workers’ rights. Sweatshops are distressingly common, as is child labour. In relation to white collar workers, the Supreme Court of India ruled in 2023 that government employees are not entitled to claim double overtime allowance under the Factories Act.
None of this is to suggest for a moment that Irish employers aren’t well capable of ruthlessly exploiting workers and paying ridiculously low wages for tough, back-breaking work. “Offending employers in restaurants are often members of the same communities as staff they recruit from their countries of origin. Offenders in sectors such as agriculture are more likely to be Irish,” the MRCI does acknowledge.
But Appendix 2 of the 2023 WRC annual report, which lists the convictions for that year in relation to various breaches of workplace and employment legislation, contains a very significant number of companies with names such as Jin Xin Limited and Sree Sai Prabha Ltd and Ming Gao.
For the avoidance of any doubt, I fully support the work being done by the MCRI or any other body which seeks to expose and address the abuse of workers’ rights. Depriving the labourer of his or her just wage is a grievous wrongdoing in my eyes. No-one should profit by breaking the backs of their fellow human beings. I have always taken with a very large grain of salt the claims made by large companies who fly in low-paid workers that they cannot find Irish people to do the job. Isn’t it likely that they simply are pursuing a race to the bottom by importing often-desperate people in order to maximise profits rather than paying local workers a living wage.
Yet it seems strange to me that when we read about the terrible exploitation of migrant workers in Ireland, we rarely get an understanding that it often seems to be other migrants who are doing the exploiting. The headlines don’t convey the full picture.