Businesses in most sectors of the economy will be able to trade from Monday (29^th June) as the Government announced further relaxations in Covid-19 restrictions when it met last week.

Fórsa’s elected National Executive Committee has advised its branches and officials that significant changes to – or departures from – agreements governing pay and working conditions should again be negotiated through normal industrial relations procedures from Monday 29^th June.

Fórsa is opposing the unilateral introduction of work targets, which staff say could double current workloads for Department of Employee Assistance and Social Protection employees working in activation roles.

Every social welfare employee is currently receiving a daily email from the department’s LGBTQI+ network as part of Pride month. The mailings contain information on diversity resources on the network’s intranet page, and invites workers to take part in digital DEASP Pride events.

Fórsa’s summer series of webinars on campaigning issues kicks off at 1.00pm today (Friday 26^th June) with expert speakers discussing ideas for a new people-centred post-coronavirus social and economic model.

Last Friday’s meeting of the European Council in Brussels fell short of ironing out disagreements over the proposed EU recovery package, designed to restore European economies severely damaged by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.