Not for sale
by Hazel Gavigan

Members of Unite and Siptu in Virgin Media are voting on industrial action up to and including strike action over 65 job cuts at the firm. Long-term staff are particularly aggrieved that the terms and conditions of their redundancies have changed from a previous package in 2015. Redundancy payments are now capped at 12 months, down from 24 months.

 

In other broadcast industrial news, its reported that a major divide has opened up in RTÉ after a small gathering of journalists called for the station’s top earners to take considerable pay cuts. A motion passed by around 30 National Union of Journalist members last week described the salaries of the station’s key presenters as “indefensible”. It called on RTÉ management to “immediately” reduce the fees paid to presenters so that nobody would earn more than the top civil service salary of €207,590.

 

Health minister Simon Harris said that the Government is going to have to pay hospital consultants a lot more money if it wants to keep them working in the public health service. Speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday he said he wanted to pay consultants working in public hospitals more for doing public medicine. However, he said that other health service groups including GPs, nurses and midwives, who wanted to talk about more money or reversal of austerity-era cuts, had to do that alongside a programme of reform.

 

Results of the Civil Service Customer Satisfaction Survey were published yesterday by minister Paschal Donohoe. The findings reveal that 85% of customers were satisfied with both the service received and the outcome of their most recent contact with the civil service, while customer dissatisfaction is at its lowest level since 2009.

 

Unions are to undertake a risk assessment before staff can be given the go-ahead to operate the Dáil's new €800,000 printer. Staff say the printer cannot be used until a health and safety audit has been carried out. Meanwhile, the Public Accounts Committee is to examine how more than €1m was spent on the machine.

 

A report on pay for county and city councillors is expected to recommend a possible pay increase of €8,000 at a cost of €7.5m per year to the State. The junior housing minister said pay-rises for councillors should be back-dated to this year’s local elections.

 

A letter from Congress general secretary Patricia King, deploring the murders of social leaders and trade unionists in Colombia, has been given to the Columbian Ambassador to Ireland, Patricia Cortez Ortiz. Fórsa general secretary Kevin Callinan was one of two people to present the letter which you can read here.

 

And finally, the Irishman was released on Netflix yesterday after its initial cinema run earlier this month. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, the outstanding reviews appear to indicate its worth investing three and a half hours to watch it. Here's the trailer.

 

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