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Northern Ireland Water Shamed!
In the age of 'New Labour' spin the public are seldom
surprised when a story in the headlines, is the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. They now have to search the story,
investigate the content, read between the lines of the press release, to
find the hidden content.
Users will recall the hype that surrounded the news that Northern
Ireland Water was to start an Apprenticeship Scheme, in fact, Sir Reg
Empy himself formed part of the story, highlighting the new ApprenticeshipsNI
scheme.
What both Northern Ireland Water and Sir Reg Empy failed to tell you
was that prior to this scheme, Northern Ireland Water took on unskilled
workers, such as those now targeted by the apprenticeship scheme. They
failed to tell you that the entry level into Northern Ireland Water for
such employees was a class 3 industrial Operative on a starting salary of £16,949.00.
They failed to highlight to you the starting salary of the new apprenticeship
they were now pushing was a mere, £10,000 per annum for a 37 hour week
and they failed to tell you that this means that a new apprentice with
Northern Ireland Water is being paid just under £5.20 per hour, which
is approximately 53 pence less per hour than the National Minimum Wage
for over 21's.
In short both Northern Ireland Water and Sir Reg Empy have not only
failed to highlight these issues but they would appear to have failed you!
Last Updated 3rd December 2008
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