Sectoral Employment Order Application

An SEO that includes archaeologists would recognise both our specialist expertise and education, and our esscential position within the Irish construction sector.

What is a Sectoral Employment Order?

A Sectoral Employment Order (SEO), is a legally binding order by the Labour Court. It requires employers to provide minimum rates of pay, sick pay, and pensions.

A Sectoral Employment Order (SEO), for the construction sector and its employees, was signed into legislation following acceptance by the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, of recommendations from the Labour Court; coming into effect on 18 September 2023.

Table 1: Construction sector SEO professional wage provisions:

The full Construction Sector SEO can be read on the Workplace Relations Commission website.

Click table to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

Who was covered by the construction SEO?

There are 2 criteria which decide who is covered:

The employer must operate in the construction sector, and
It applies to employees who work in the sector and defines their roles into specific classes and pay bands: new entrant operatives (€16.74 p/hr), construction operative (€20.71 - €22.32 p/hr); or craft person (€23.00 p/hr).

The SEO defines, what activities place an employer within the construction sector, and what experience and qualifications place a worker in a particular employee class (see Table 1).

An SEO of our own

Despite our specialist education and training, archaeologists were excluded from the construction sector SEO. Upon trying to establish an SEO of our own, our application was denied on the grounds of not having enough members in our union to be representative of the industry. THAT, folks, is why we all need to join together now.

Our second SEO application is almost complete, and this time, we’re making a joint application, with employers. We’ve had a series of meetings with employers, and we’re happy to say that anyone who has met with us, has said that they support the idea of an SEO for the archaeology sector, in principle.

We’ve simplified the application, so that it will act like a minimum-wage for anyone working on an archaeological site. Once we have a minimum in place, then we can move onto establishing better rates for site supervisors and directors, and issues like sick pay, pensions etc. The rate that our members have opted for, is €22.50p/hr for site assistants. Some archaeological consultancies are paying close to this rate already (see Table 2). In order to reward and keep experienced staff, archaeological companies will need to pay such employees more than this rate. The bottom line is, if we get the SEO in place, wages within the commercial archaeological sector will never be able to backslide to the national minimum-wage ever again, thus saving the industry from losing its most valuable resource, its people.

We need all archaeologists to work with us. Become members to support our new SEO application. The Labour Court will need to see that we are substantially representative of the workers in the commercial archaeology sector, that’s why we need as many archaeologists as possible to join now.

Table 2: Site Assistant rates-of-pay (2023-2025) – by order of hourly rate:

(Table data based on job advertisements by each company. If rates change, please let us know, and we will update).

* = estimate # = 77.2% taxed

s/a = subsistence/accommodation provided, but not specified