Health and medical information is provided by qualified nurses from 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public and bank holidays. If you call outside these times, you can leave a message and you’ll get a call back. Phone: 1890-254-164.

And you can get information on our other free legal, counselling and domestic assistance helplines – exclusive to Fórsa members – HERE.

The union-negotiated ‘new entrants’ pay deal came into force last week, well ahead of the earliest date envisaged in the current public service pay agreement. The new arrangement will see public servants recruited since 2011 skip their fourth and eighth increments.

The change now kicks in on the date on which each individual affected hits their fourth and eighth increment date. It will boost pay, and ensure that new entrants’ reach the top of their pay scales over the same time period as their more experienced colleagues.

The term ‘new entrants’ refers to people who started work in the civil and public service, and organisations linked to it for pay purposes, after 2011 when inferior pay scales for new staff were imposed by the Government without agreement.

These inferior scales, which were worth 10% less at every point of each scale, were abolished at unions’ insistence under the 2013 Haddington Road agreement.

But, until now, new entrants continued to have more lengthy pay scales than their longer-serving colleagues, with two lower pay points at the beginning of each scale.

The Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) established a process to address the problem. Following detailed discussions and inputs from Fórsa and other unions, this resulted in the solution that took effect last week.

Get more detail HERE.

Read the DPER ‘frequently-asked questions’ document HERE.

Professionals in the early years’ sector are becoming increasingly qualified, but staffing shortages are worsening as graduates emigrate or leave for better-paid jobs, according to data in the Higher Education Authority graduate survey. Approximately 94% of staff have qualifications of level five or higher. This is up 2% on 2016-2017, and 6% on the previous year.

Despite this consistent rise of skill and ability, 57% of early years’ services report problems finding suitably qualified staff. That’s up 10% on last year.

The Higher Education Authority graduate survey shows that many honours degree graduates are struggling on salaries of less than €20,000 a year, which is well below the living wage.

This news comes just a month after it was revealed two-thirds of Irish adults think the pay of highly-trained childcare staff should reflect their qualifications. Yet salaries in the early years’ sector remain among the lowest in the Irish workforce.

Fórsa organiser, Katie Morgan said increased government investment is needed to professionalise the sector. “We have been campaigning on this with other unions. Without adequate investment the issues the sector is currently experiencing will only get worse,” she said.

Fórsa is hosting a series of nationwide public meetings as part of its school secretaries campaign, Support Our Secretaries.

The series of meetings commenced last night (Monday 4th March) in the Teachers Centre in Waterford.

Fórsa lead organiser Joe O’Connor said meetings are open to staff, parents, and all members of the school community, as well as public representatives in each region.

“We’re inviting all of these stakeholders to come along to hear from school secretaries in their community, and about the campaign for respect and fair conditions for all school secretaries,” he said.

Joe added that a hearing of the Oireachtas education committee, in relation to the status of non-teaching staff in schools, has been scheduled for 9th April. Fórsa has made a written submission, the deadline for submissions closes today (Tuesday 5th).

Public meeting details

• Cork: Monday 11th March, Imperial Hotel Cork at 7pm 
• Dublin Bay North: Wednesday 13th March, Le Chéile Community Centre, Donnycarney, Dublin 9 at 8.30pm
• Galway: Monday 25th March, The Harbour Hotel, New Dock Street Galway at 8pm*
• Limerick: Thursday 28th March, Fórsa Midwest regional office, Roxborough Road, Limerick at 7pm

Download the latest edition of the Support Our Secretaries newsletter here.

*Please note this is a change of date. The meeting in Galway had previously been advertised on forsa.ie to take place on Wednesday 27th March.

The founder of one of the first large organisations to switch to a shorter working week has called on others to follow suit, following a successful eight-week trial. New Zealand finance company Perpetual Guardian switched its 240 staff to a four-day week, with no pay reduction, last November. The result has been higher productivity, increased profits and significantly better staff wellbeing.

The trial was supervised by the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology, who surveyed staff after the eight week experiment. They reported marked improvement compared to a 2017 survey in the same workplace.

Results from the trial, which has been closely watched by trade unions, employers and policy makers globally, indicated a 20% increase in productivity, with staff stress down 13% and work-life balance up 14%.

The company’s chief executive Andrew Barnes said staff initially wondered how they could do five days’ work in four days. “Not only could they do their work in four days but they were better able to do the work in four days. That, for me, was the one result from the research which was extraordinarily surprising,” he said.

Fórsa added its voice to international trade union calls for a move to a four-day week at an international conference hosted at the union’s Dublin office last November.

The conference, born from a number of motions brought to Fórsa’s national conference last May, explored the future of working time with a number of experts in the field, who highlighted the evidence-based positive results of shorter working time.

The conference also heard from Fórsa senior general secretary designate Kevin Callinan, who said that reduced working time was again emerging as one of the central issues in international debates over the future of work.

For more information on the study click HERE and HERE.

A former US national security advisor has identified the impact of new technology on work practices and employment as one of the top challenges facing governments across the world.

Speaking on a podcast last month, Tom Donilon said the impact of technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation was “a fundamental discussion that we’re not having.”

Mr Donilon was national security advisor in the Obama administration, and also worked in the White House for presidents Clinton and Carter.

In an interview with the left-leaning US podcast Pod Save The World, he ranked the issue alongside the most worrying geopolitical trends including nuclear weapons proliferation, great power confrontation, cyber-security and threats to democracy.

“Populism is not at its peak right now. We have a much more fundamental populist challenge in the western democracies, and one of the essential things in dealing with this is having a really serious discussion about how we’re going to manage the future of work in the face of technology,” he said.

Mr Donilon criticised the lack of US investment in infrastructure to address the issue, particularly at a time when governments can borrow at very low interest rates. “We have conversations about trade, and trade has had negative impacts on communities in the United States. But it’s not at the same scale, frankly, as these technological impacts are going to be.

“I would like to see a lot of discussion about that. I would consider that to be a national security discussion, because it’s the sort of thing that keeps a society together and gives us a strong economy going forward,” he said.

Last month Fórsa published policy guidelines on the implications of new technologies in the civil and public service. The union said management should work with unions to ensure that their introduction does not result in job losses or poorer services.

The Fórsa paper called for steps to ensure that new recruits are equipped to thrive in increasingly-automated work environments, and that older workers should get help to adapt.

Fórsa’s probation branch will be running a clothing drive to mark International Women’s Day (IWD) on Friday (8th March). The event will support ‘Dress for Success Dublin,’ an organisation that helps women to access employment.

The branch is collecting suits, shirts, unworn tights, shoes, handbags and jewellery. Donations are welcome any time before March 8th to Fiona Daly on the fourth floor and Linda or Mary on the first floor at 9 Haymarket, Smithfield, Dublin 7.

Dress for Success campaigned alongside Fórsa and multiple other groups for the introduction of gender pay gap reporting legislation in Ireland. If enacted, the law would oblige companies above a certain size to publish details of their gender pay gap. The Bill is currently before the Dáil, having passed through the Seanad last October.

The gender pay gap in Ireland today is approximately 14% which is significant to the theme for this IWD - #BalanceforBetter.

Also on this IWD, Fórsa president Ann McGee will speak on a panel at the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s (ICTU) Women’s Committee seminar. The panel, to be chaired by ICTU president Sheila Nunan, will discuss the challenges and opportunities that women in leadership positions face in the trade union movement. Contributors include leading women from various unions across Ireland and the UK.

The event takes place on Thursday and Friday (7th and 8th of March) in Newcastle, County Down, and you can follow proceedings on our Twitter.

At the international level, the European Federation of Public Services Unions (EPSU), of which Fórsa is an affiliate, is sending a delegation to the 63rd UN Commission on the Status of Women. This global event coincides with IWD, and will examine the theme of “social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”

For more information on this you can follow the hashtags #IWD #EPSUIWD and #publicservicesforequality on Friday.

Pilot Schools and Non-Cooperation

Recently, the Fórsa Education division was made aware that a planned ‘pilot project’ was to be launched in a number of schools in the Kildare/Wicklow/Dublin area, following a media report.

Given that the outcomes of this pilot project could have been used to change the nature of the SNA role, Fórsa felt that it had no choice but to issue a general non-cooperation instruction to members who may find themselves involved in the pilot project.

The union warned the Department of Education and Skills that its SNA members will not cooperate with a proposed special needs assistants’ (SNA) pilot project unless there is consultation and engagement with the union.

To be clear, Fórsa is not averse to exploring ways to advance the SNA role with the Department of Education. We undertook a major engagement with SNAs in relation to the NCSE review to gain insights into SNAs own views on the proposed changes. Some 4,000 SNAs participated in that process in late 2018.

At the very least, however, we expected to be included in discussions before anything that could change the nature of the SNA role was rolled out. When it became clear that the pilot projects may begin before discussions were held, we had no choice but to issue the non-cooperation instruction and Fórsa subsequently wrote to every school in the pilot area.

We have since discovered, however, that the pilot had already commenced in a number of areas. It is being referred to as an "Occupational Therapist and Speech and Language Therapist" ("O/T and S&LT") pilot scheme. Again, as this pilot project potentially changes the nature of the SNA role, it's vital that SNA representatives are consulted beforehand.

We have communicated our position to the Department of Education. How such additional or changed work practices might impact on SNA terms and conditions needs to be understood before such a pilot scheme is implemented.

Fórsa is always willing to sit down with the Department to discuss ways to advance the SNA role. In return it is only right and fair that SNAs get to consider how any such changes might become cause to consider improvements to SNA terms and conditions.

We will continue to update our SNA members on this issue.

Archived issues

Since April 2018 we've been publishing a special segment focussing on contract issues facing SNAs. Devised and written by assistant general secretary Seán Carabini, it has proved to be one of the most popular items in the Education news bulletin. 

We've archived all of these items for ease of access, and will publish an updated archive in each future edition of the bulletin.

If you have SNA contract issues you'd like to see covered in the bulletin, please contact us here and include 'SNA contract issues for the news bulletin' in the subject heading.

• SNAs and assault leave
• Advice on the '72 Hours' and does an SNA have a supervision function?
• How is the pay for part time hours calculated?
• Notice periods
• Panel Appeals
• Displacement: Are You Doing Someone Else’s Job?
• Standard contract for 2018/2019 school year
• SNA allocation FAQs
• The NCSE's SNA review: main points and recommendations
• Q&A: NCSE Comprehensive Review of the Special Needs Assistant Scheme
• Post fragmentation
• I was a full-time SNA but have had my hours cut. Am I entitled to any redundancy payment?

A rally in support of the union-backed ‘Raise the Roof’ housing and homelessness campaign will take place outside Cork City Hall at 5.00pm next Monday (11th March).

Protesters will be calling on Cork City Council to support a housing motion being tabled that evening.

‘Raise the Roof’ brings together a wide range of civil society bodies, including trade unions, political parties and women’s organisations, to demand fundamental action on the housing crisis. The ‘ONE Cork’ network, which brings together trade unions in the city, has been driving next week’s event.

The campaign is calling for a local authority house-building programme, greater security for tenants, and a constitutional right to housing.

Fórsa organiser Joe O’Connor wants the union’s members to show their support. “Fórsa activists and branches are right at the heart of this. We are encouraging all our members based in Cork or nearby counties to attend this rally and give Raise the Roof their full support,” he said.

This will be the first in a series of regional rallies, building up to a national demonstration in May. A similar event is scheduled for Galway on 8th April.

Meanwhile, a new research and advocacy group has been established to campaign on constitutional issues relating to the proposed legal right to housing. ‘Home for Good,’ which is part of the Raise the Roof campaign, is backed by Fórsa and other groups campaigning on the housing crisis.

Figures released by the housing department last week showed a record 9,987 people were homeless in January. Over 3,600 of them were children.

Get more information HERE.

A new Fórsa youth network was launched in February, and the group is now working hard, establishing their presence. Nominations to the network were sought from branches late last year and the newly constituted group, made up of just under 30 young members, held their first meeting last month.

The committee, chaired by Fórsa President Ann McGee, has been charged with highlighting issues relevant to younger members and advocating on their behalf. The inaugural meeting kicked off with a busy agenda, and an engaging and robust discussion around workplace and social issues ensued.

Fórsa’s youth network is open to any member under the age of 35. The union has advised anyone who wants to get involved to contact their branch secretary or email the network here.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has called on the Government to abandon plans for tax cuts, and instead earmark €500 million to deal with the possible fallout of a hard Brexit. In a briefing document published last week, ICTU says a British crash-out from the EU later this month would bring substantial job losses, food price hikes, and a dent in public finances.

The implications of a no-deal Brexit, ICTU’s fourth Brexit briefing, says fears of a hard Brexit have increased, but argues for the softest possible settlement between the UK and the EU.

“The best way to achieve this is to agree the closest possible relationship between the UK and the EU, ideally with the entire UK staying in the single market and the customs union. Only by achieving this can we ensure that jobs and citizens’ and workers’ rights are not negatively affected,” it says.

Meanwhile, Paschal Donohoe has said 400 extra customs staff will be recruited before the end of March to deal with a new Brexit customs scenario. And another 200 will come on stream soon after that. Speaking in the Dáil last week, the finance minister also said he would provide extra resources to Revenue if they were needed.

Last week, the chief executive of Dublin Port said the number of lorries travelling through Dublin from outside the EU would rise by 800,000 if there was a hard Brexit.

Welfare supports and weak labour market protections are combining to facilitate low pay, poor working conditions, and insecure and precarious employment, according to the social change think-tank TASC.

'The state we are in: inequality in Ireland' today says Ireland ranks among the worst in the EU in terms of labour market protections and the regulation of temporary contracts. And inequality here is boosted by relatively high living costs and the lack of universal provision in public services like health, childcare and housing.

Coupled with poor labour market regulation, the report says welfare payments like child benefit, family income supplement and jobseekers’ allowance for part-time workers act as State subsidies for low-paying employers.

Ineffective regulation also puts governments under pressure to subsidise lower middle-income earners in precarious work, it says.

The study finds that the share of income among middle earners is generally stable across many countries. “Where Ireland differs is not that the poorest are unusually poor, but that groups above the bottom 10% get a smaller share compared to our more equal European neighbours,” it says.

TASC also says a high proportion of the population – 24% – are at risk of poverty. Over 27% of children are at risk, while adults with disabilities and lone parents are also particularly vulnerable groups.

Read the report HERE.

An increased role for trade unions and collective bargaining, along with improved social security supports and a broader focus on skills, is needed to protect job quality in the face of workplace automation, according to a new report from the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI).

The future of work: The impact of automation technologies for job quality in Northern Ireland, examines the effects of increasing automation on the nature of work and job quality. It draws on previous experience of new technologies to understand how automation might affect the quality of jobs in the future.

The report says that automation may destroy some jobs, but will likely create more employment. It adds that assessing the impact of this for workers requires evaluating both the jobs lost and those subsequently created.

It says that, while the economy has been able to create new jobs to avoid overall employment reductions, lost jobs in sectors like manufacturing have not been replaced with identical roles.

The report also found that industries and occupations with the lowest risk of automation are more susceptible to lower job quality in Northern Ireland, and it is unlikely job quality will improve without direct policy intervention.

Read the report HERE.