Construction workers: the Sectoral Employment Order, CWPS and your rights

Construction is one of the few sectors in Ireland with a legally binding pay floor above the national minimum wage. The Sectoral Employment Order for the construction sector, made under the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 on the recommendation of the Labour Court, sets minimum hourly rates for craft workers, general operatives and apprentices, overtime and unsocial hours premiums, and compulsory pension and sick pay cover. Every employer in the sector must comply, union member or not, Irish or foreign, and a worker can enforce the order at the WRC. This guide explains what the order covers, where the current figures are, and how to use the WRC if you are paid below it.

What a sectoral employment order is

An SEO is a statutory instrument. A union or employer body representing a substantial number of workers in a sector asks the Labour Court to examine pay and conditions; the Court hears the parties and recommends terms; the Minister confirms them by order after a vote in the Oireachtas; and from the commencement date the terms are implied into every contract of employment in the sector. The current construction order is the Sectoral Employment Order (Construction Sector) 2024, which replaced the 2023 order. A new order replaces the previous one when made, so the rates that bind your employer are the ones in force on each pay day. This site does not reproduce figures that it cannot verify against the instrument: the rate for your category is the rate in the current order, and the order is on the Irish Statute Book.

The order applies to the construction sector as defined in it: building and civil engineering work of the kinds the order lists, performed by workers in the categories it names. Electrical contracting and mechanical engineering (plumbing, pipefitting, heating) have their own separate orders. If you are unsure which order applies, your union will know.

The categories and the rates

The order sets a minimum hourly rate for each category rather than one rate for everyone:

The rate for each category is the rate in the current order. All of them sit above the national minimum wage of €14.15 an hour for a worker aged 20 or over in 2026, which is why the minimum wage checker only tells you the statutory floor: in construction your real floor is the order's figure for your category.

The order sets a normal working week of 39 hours. It sets overtime premiums for hours beyond the normal day Monday to Friday, for Saturday work and for Sunday and public holiday work, expressed as time and a half or double time depending on the day and the number of hours; the exact structure is in the order. It also sets the unsocial hours and shift premiums for night work. These premiums are part of the floor: an employer cannot pay the hourly rate and ignore them.

Pension, sick pay and death in service: CWPS

The order requires every employer to enrol workers in a pension scheme and a sick pay scheme that meet its minimum terms, with contributions from both employer and employee at the rates set out in the order, and to provide death-in-service cover. The Construction Workers' Pension Scheme is the industry scheme set up for this purpose and most employers use it; an employer may use another scheme only where it provides benefits at least equivalent to the order's. Your payslip should show your own contribution as a deduction; the employer's contribution is paid directly. CWPS sends members statements, and you can check your contribution history with the scheme.

Three practical points. First, the sick pay element is separate from the Sick Leave Act 2022's statutory 5 days at 70% capped at €110: the scheme benefit is the higher one and sits in place of the statutory scheme if, taken as a whole, it is at least as favourable. Second, if a contribution is deducted from your pay and not paid over, that is an unlawful deduction under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and a matter the Pensions Authority can pursue. Third, auto-enrolment under My Future Fund since 1 January 2026 does not apply to you if you are already in a qualifying occupational scheme such as CWPS; if you are not in any scheme, you may be enrolled in My Future Fund and the employer is still in breach of the order.

Working time, travel and records

The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 applies alongside the order: a 48-hour average week over four months, 11 hours' daily rest, 24 hours' weekly rest, a 15-minute break after 4.5 hours and 30 minutes after 6. The order's 39-hour week is the point at which overtime premiums start; it does not raise the 48-hour ceiling. Your employer must keep records of your hours and, if a complaint is made and no records exist, the WRC can expect the employer to disprove your account.

Travel time is often disputed. Time spent travelling between sites during the working day at the employer's direction is working time under the 1997 Act. Travel from home to the first site is ordinarily not, unless you have no fixed place of work and the employer directs you to changing sites, in which case the position is less clear and the WRC has looked at it case by case. Whether travel time is paid, and at what rate, is a matter for your contract and any allowance the order or a site agreement sets. Check the current order and your contract before assuming either way.

The ten public holidays in 2026 are 1 January, 2 February, 17 March, 6 April, 4 May, 1 June, 3 August, 26 October, 25 December and 26 December. Annual leave is the statutory four weeks (by the greatest of the three methods) unless the order or your contract gives more. The annual leave calculator works it out.

Self-employed or employee

The order applies to employees. Some contractors engage workers as self-employed subcontractors, often through a "relevant contracts tax" arrangement, and then pay below the order's rates. The label does not decide it. Under the Supreme Court's Karshan (2023) test the WRC looks at the whole relationship: exchange of work for pay, personal service, control, and whether the terms are consistent with employment. A worker who turns up where and when told, uses the employer's materials, cannot send a substitute and is paid by the hour may well be an employee whatever the paperwork says. If so, the order applies. The employee or self-employed guide covers the test.

The order's history

The first construction SEO was made in 2017 and a second in 2019. In June 2020 the High Court, in a challenge by an electrical contractors' body, found the 2019 electrical order and the legislative chapter it was made under to be unconstitutional, which put every SEO in doubt. In February 2021 the Supreme Court overturned that decision and restored the legislative framework, and the Labour Court and Minister then made new construction orders in 2021, 2023 and 2024. The practical consequence is that the orders are secure, and that a gap in cover exists only for the period between the High Court ruling and the Supreme Court's reversal, which the later orders did not reach back to fill. Any 2025 or 2026 order is tracked on /changes.

Enforcing the order at the WRC

Underpayment of the order's rate, or of its overtime premiums, is a contravention of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 and also an unlawful deduction under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 of the amount properly payable. The complaint is made online to the WRC within six months of the pay date, with no fee, and each pay day is its own contravention, so the six months run separately for each; the adjudicator can extend to twelve months for reasonable cause. The WRC can order the arrears to be paid and, under the 2015 Act, compensation. WRC inspectors also enforce SEOs directly and can inspect an employer's records on a complaint; an inspection does not need you to be named.

Before the complaint, write to the employer setting out your category, the rate in the order, the rate you were paid and the hours, and ask for the difference. Keep your own record of hours from the first day; the case file keeps the dates. Dismissal for raising the order is dismissal for exercising a statutory right, which needs no minimum service for an unfair dismissal claim, and penalisation for a complaint under the 2015 Act is itself a contravention. The deadline checker gives you the date.

Unions

SIPTU represents general operatives and many craft workers in construction; Connect Trade Union represents craft workers, including electricians, plumbers and pipefitters; Unite represents craft and general workers in some firms. The unions are parties to the Labour Court process that produces each order and advise members on the current rates. See which union covers you.

Where this leaves you

In construction your pay floor is the rate in the current Sectoral Employment Order for your category, not the national minimum wage, and the order's overtime premiums and pension and sick pay terms are part of that floor. The minimum wage checker tells you the statutory rate for your age and the shortfall over any period against that rate; take the order's figure for your category from the instrument on the Irish Statute Book and apply the same arithmetic to it. If you are paid below it, the route is a written request to the employer, then a WRC complaint within six months of each pay day. Workers in security and contract cleaning have a similar floor under employment regulation orders.