Education funding, school secretaries’ pay, SNA allocations, gender equality, housing, mental health, and the climate crisis are among the issues that Fórsa has raised with the main political parties contesting general election 2020. And the union has developed materials to help education workers quiz election candidates who knock on the door to plead for their votes.

Fórsa is not affiliated to any political party, and does not support any party or candidate in the election. But the union is actively working to influence the policy of the next government on the issues that matter most to its members.

Last week, Fórsa wrote to all the main political parties to outline the policies it wants to see implemented after the election on 8^th February.

And the union’s “Public Service Champions’ Charter” sets out a range of questions on public service-wide issues that we’ve put to all the political parties. We intend to publish their responses online in the final week of the election campaign.

The union has also published a handy guide to issues that education staff can raise with canvassers. Parties are influenced by what they hear on the doorstep if enough people show they’re concerned about particular issues.

We believe the policies of the next government can be shaped if Fórsa members use this material to send a strong and consistent message to party leaders. So, keep it by the hall door and be ready when the politicians come looking for your vote!

• Download our education sector questions HERE
• Download our union-wide questions in Fórsa's Public Service Champions’ Charter HERE

A series of rallies in Dublin, Waterford, Athlone and Letterkenny were well attended, while on social media #SupportOurSecretaries was trending high throughout the day.

The strike action was followed by a resumption of work to rule action, which was lifted this morning following a decision to return to talks facilitated by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

The dispute is over the continuing two-tier pay system that leaves most school secretaries earning just €12,500 a year, with irregular, short-term contracts that force them to sign on during the summer holidays and other school breaks.

Fórsa represents more than half of the estimated 2,000 school secretaries employed directly by their school’s board of management and paid from the school’s ancillary grant.

The remaining estimated 1,000 school secretaries are employed directly through the Education and Training Boards (ETBs), while a very small number remain employed under the pre-1978 scheme, under which school secretaries were employed directly by the Department of Education.

The vast majority of school secretaries working in Ireland are women.

Media

The strike action won significant media coverage throughout the day, with individual school secretaries featuring prominently. Paula Harrington from Cork featured in the Irish Examiner  and spoke on RTE’s Today with Seán O’Rourke programme, which included an interview with education minister Joe McHugh TD.

Eileen Barry was featured in the Irish Independent, while Maeve Hurrell, Liz Phelan, Maria Dunne and Kathleen O’Doherty spoke to RTE’s Education correspondent Emma O’Kelly for RTE's SixOne bulletin. Kathleen also spoke from the Letterkenny rally on Highland Radio, while TheJournal.ie spoke to a number of school secretaries on the day.

You can view the school secretaries campaign video here, which was shot and edited by our SIPTU colleague Paddy Cole, and a selection of photographs from pickets and the four main rallies are available on our Facebook page.

Derisory

Previously, talks took place between October and December 2019. Andy Pike, Forsa’s head of Education, said the department had failed to bring forward any proposals on pay capable of resolving the issue: “The offer to school secretaries was 1.5%. An offer we can only describe as insulting. The gap between both parties clearly remains far too wide, and school secretaries had no option but to re-commence their industrial action. Regrettably, this is the the only way to increase pressure on the employer."

“Fórsa left the WRC negotiations having given a clear message to the employers that our campaign does not seek percentage pay increases. What we’re seeking is respect and recognition for school secretaries through access to the same pay and conditions as secretaries in ETB Schools. Regrettably the only way to increase pressure on the employer’s side is to escalate the industrial action.

“In the context of broader pay trends, the offer of 1.5% is derisory and falls far short of what it would take to resolve a pay disparity that successive governments have allowed to fester for four decades. Our aim in this process is to ensure school secretaries and caretakers are afforded the opportunity to work in a system that properly reflects their huge value to the school community.

“This offer doesn’t even come close to achieving that goal, and it’s possible the Government has completely underestimated the resolve of school secretaries to get a meaningful result on this,” he said.

Pay increases under the current public service agreement (which does not apply to grant paid school secretaries) come in at just over 1.75% in 2019, while CSO figures show that average weekly earnings rose by 3.9% in the private sector.

Average economy-wide pay increases of almost 4% are anticipated this year.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reveal that just half of workers are actively saving towards their retirement through an occupational or private pension. And six-in-ten of those with no occupational pension expect to depend on the State pension as their only source of retirement income.

This huge gap between workers with occupational pensions and those without will impact hardest on women and low and middle earners.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) said the new figures provide further evidence that planned pension ‘auto-enrolment’ needed to be introduced quickly. The auto-enrolment scheme would compel all workers to contribute to an occupational pension scheme, with employers and the State also paying in.

Although the Government’s plan for auto-enrolment was launched nearly two years ago, important aspects of the legislation still remain unclear – including the level of State contribution to workers’ pension savings.

These and other details were supposed to be ironed out before the end of last year after the formal cabinet approval of the plan. But it didn’t happen.

Fórsa national secretary Billy Hannigan has led the union’s campaign for the introduction of a robust auto-enrolment system. “A substantial number of people in the private sector, especially women, have no occupational pension and are staring at poverty in old age.

“In 2018, Fórsa’s first conference welcomed Government proposals for a new three-way pension scheme involving employees, employers, and the State. Now we need to have details of the new scheme confirmed as soon as possible. The earlier the scheme gets off the ground the better for all of those people who currently have no occupational pension coverage,” he said.

The CSO survey found that 53% of those without occupational pensions cited the lack of employer provision as the reason. 

In cases where employers offered an occupational pension but workers opted not to participate, the most common reason for non-participation was that they “never got around to organising it,” while a third of respondents said they couldn’t afford it.

CSO figures on pension coverage in 2019 can be found here.

More than a decade since the economic crash, public service pay and conditions are still being framed by an “emergency mind-set,” despite Ireland’s return to robust growth, exchequer finances and employment rates, according to Fórsa’s general secretary.

Kevin Callinan said the negotiations on a successor to the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) – the three-year pay deal that expires in December – will be near the top of the incoming Government’s in-box after the February election.

And he called on politicians to seize the opportunity to move on from an entrenched “culture of crisis and restoration.” 

Kevin said the failure to move on from the crisis continues to feed instability in public service pay and provision. And he said the teachers’ strike, scheduled for next month, was just one example of unnecessary difficulties caused by the Government’s failure to give priority to addressing weaknesses in the PSSA.

“Last spring I called for talks to deal with the PSSA’s shortcomings. I said economic and exchequer improvements had outstripped everyone’s expectations when the deal was signed in 2017, and that we needed to engage in discussions to address issues in particular sectors in advance of post-PSSA talks.

“As I predicted, the Government’s failure to prioritise this has further destabilised the agreement. I believe the root of the problem lies in an outdated emergency mind-set. It’s time politicians of all parties showed some flexibility and moved on from the entrenched culture of crisis and restoration in public service pay policy,” he said.

In its general election materials, Fórsa has stressed the need for inflation-plus increases to reflect the fact that economic improvements have run ahead of agreed pay provisions over the last three years. It also calls on candidates to pledge to resolve remaining “two-tier” measures – including extra working hours – that were introduced during the economic crisis.

Kevin said that a decade after the crisis hit, the legislation that gave effect to the PSSA remained couched in the language of emergency. “Whatever its shape, it will be over 15 years since the emergency if the incoming Government runs its five-year course,” he said.

 “The spending power of public service wages is being eroded by the increasing cost-of-living, including in housing and child care, while private sector earnings are now rising at three times the rate of public service pay. We have been stressing to senior figures in all the main political parties that this issue must be addressed quickly and decisively once we have a new administration,” he said.

Derry City and Strabane District Council has become the first Northern Ireland employment of its kind to adopt a menopause policy. Developed in conjunction with unions, the policy will provide education and support to employees, and sets out guidelines and supports for staff and managers to help manage menopausal symptoms at work.

Research carried out by TUC indicates that menopause is still a taboo subject, and the majority of women are unwilling to ask for support – or even discuss menopause-related health issues with their managers.

The council said its new policy aims to ensure that everyone understands what menopause is, can confidently have a conversation about the issue, and are clear on the new practices now in place.

Fórsa equality officer Geraldine O’Brien has welcomed the development. 

“Menopause is an equality and occupational health issue, and unions have a role to play in ensuring that correct procedures and supports are in place. I hope that the introduction of this policy will encourage other employments to have an open conversation about how they can better support employees transitioning through menopause,” she said.

For more information on menopause at work click HERE. 

The statutory minimum wage is set to increase to €10.10 an hour on 1^st February on foot of the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation. The belated Government decision brings an end to months of uncertainty for minimum wage earners.

The official adoption of the increase was deferred at budget time, leaving some 130,000 workers uncertain about whether they would be seeing any increase in their wages.

The 30 cent rise – up from the previous rate of €9.80 – will increase the gross wage for a worker on a 39-hour contract by €11.70 a week.

Although welcome, the decision does not bridge the expanding gap between the statutory minimum wage and the ‘living wage,’ which measures what’s required to pay for basic necessities.

The living wage is currently estimated to be €12.30 for a full-time worker without children. The national minimum wage also currently stands 40 cent lower than the €10.50 per hour promised in the 2016 Programme for Government.

Aligning the national minimum wage and the hourly pay required to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living is the only way soaring rents and increased costs of living can be combated by the lowest-paid workers in the economy.

The deadline for members’ submissions to the Fórsa ‘Strategic Organisational Review Team’ (SORT) exercise, is the end of January. Last month, the SORT emailed members to invite them to inform the development of a strategic plan, which will inform the union’s direction over the next five years.

This is a unique opportunity to have your say on what you believe the union’s priorities should be, to put forward your ideas, and to raise any issues which you believe should be considered in the development of our strategic plan.

You can register with the SORT consultation platform at this link and you’ll then be able to make a submission under one or all of our simple themes: priorities, ideas and issues.

While a number of the ‘address’ fields are mandatory under ‘additional information,’ we do not require this data so you may enter your work address or a Fórsa office address.

All member submissions are private and confidential, and will only be visible to members of the SORT.

Get registered, make your submission, and have your say!

Most Fórsa branches have now received their 2020 wall planners and desk calendars, for distribution to members.

If you haven't yet received desk calendars or wall planners, or if you require additional stock, please contact Róisín McKane with the details (name, branch, address for delivery and quantity) and material will be issued as soon as possible. 

The ninth edition of Fórsa magazine is now available and circulating in your workplace. In our Winter-Spring 2020 edition Bernard Harbor looks at the political timing, and internal moving parts, of a new public service pay deal to succeed the current PSSA, which expires at the end of the year.

We look at the union's support for health professionals regulated by CORU, equality for workers from the Travelling Community, the trend for unpaid work trials, the right to disconnect and the inclusion of social class in Ireland's equality legislation.

We also meet a group of activists from our Dublin Hospitals branch, find out more about the education system in Palestine, and there's helpful information on changes to the management of your taxation details at Revenue, in addition to a mix of culture, food, Raymond Connolly's sideways look at music and opinion from writer Aingeala Flannery.

Pick up a copy in your workplace or download a PDF copy HERE.

Welcome to 2020, when it took just three days for the chief executives of FTSE 100 firms to earn more than ordinary UK workers will in the whole year, according to a new report from the High Pay Centre. 

     
This issue was also highlighted by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) in its annual report scrutinizing executives’ pay in Ireland. It revealed an unjustifiable gap between the top executives and average workers’ earnings in a study of 26 companies.   

 
It found that while the pay of average full-time workers rose by 2.6% in 2018, CEO remuneration increased by between 9% in Permanent TSB to a massive 99% in Smurfit Kappa.      

Meanwhile, cement company CRH maintained its astounding CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 212-to-1. In other words, it would take an average CRH worker 212 years to earn what their top executive took home in one. 

The report found that basic pay forms just 37% of the executives’ total earnings, with the lion’s share coming from bonuses, benefit-in-kind and share options.

The report points out that, as publicly-listed companies are the only ones obliged to disclose remuneration information, lucrative executive pay packages in private companies remain a mystery.  

ICTU has been pushing for the adoption of an EU shareholders rights directive to improve transparency by introducing mandatory reporting of directors’ pay as a ratio of the average pay of their full-time employees.

Congress social policy officer Laura Bambrick pushed for the speedy implementation of this directive. “The new EU shareholder rights directive, which was due to have become Irish law by June last year, is a good first step in pay transparency and tackling wage inequality,” she said. 

The European Commission says Ireland has the highest market income inequality (pre-distribution income before tax and social welfare) in the EU.

Read The Truth About CEO Pay In Ireland here.

The annual Fórsa quiz, organised by Fórsa’s youth network, has raised over €7,000 in aid of Trans Equality Network Ireland (TENI).

The quiz, which took place last December was well attended and supported by branches, while raffle prizes were donated by our service providers, all contributing to the significant funds raised.

TENI is a non-profit, member led organisation supporting the trans community in Ireland. Seeking to improve and advance the rights and equality of trans people and their families, TENI is dedicated to ending transphobia, and continues to work for social, political and legal recognition of trans people in Ireland.

Funds raised from the quiz will help TENI in their advocacy, education and support work.

More information on TENI and the work they do can be found HERE.

Fórsa is seeking applications for its annual INSPIRE training programme, which helps equip female activists with the skills and confidence they need to take on leadership positions in the union.

The programme, now in its fifth year, was developed in response to the relatively low level of women in senior decision-making positions in a union where the majority of members are female.

You can read more about the course HERE.

The training takes place in the union’s Dublin office on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th February. Applications must be made through your local Fórsa branch, which you should contact if you’re interested.

Completed application forms should be sent to this address no later than Friday 31st January 2020.
 

The ceiling for Fórsa subscriptions was raised from €380 to €387.60 with effect from 1st January 2020. This applies to those members paying the general membership rate of 0.8% of gross pay, which has an annual ceiling of €48,450. This ceiling ensures a limit to the amount that members are asked to pay in annual subscription to the union.

In accordance with the union’s rules, Fórsa’s elected National Executive Committee (NEC) decided to make the change to take account of the pay adjustment under the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) of 2% due to civil and public servants in 2020.

The union’s two other subscription rates are unaffected by the change. These are the legacy rate paid by those who were members of the former PSEU on 31st December 2017 and the 1% rate for new and existing CO related grades in the civil service who have access to the former CPSU benefit scheme which was carried over into Fórsa.
 
Benefits
On top of negotiated pay increases and protection when things go wrong at work, union members can benefit from an improved range of membership entitlements introduced when Fórsa was formed.

These include €5,000 in personal accident cover or €5,000 critical illness cover or death benefit, which also is also available to spouses of Fórsa members.

Alternatively, €5,000 in illness benefit is available to members who are out of work for more than 12 months. And Fórsa also covers evacuation or repatriation expenses up to the value of €250,000 for members who become seriously ill or injured, or who die, while abroad.

That’s on top of a range of financial benefits, negotiated with external providers, which can mean big savings on financial products like car, home and travel insurance, pension benefits, salary protection and life cover.

Fórsa members can also avail of free counselling, legal advice and support helplines, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And they can opt into our group scheme, which gives them access to huge savings on a wide range of everyday items and services including restaurants, retailers, hairdressers and coffee shops.

Get full details about membership benefits here.

Fórsa and other unions have slammed Government plans to further increase the state pension qualifying age to 67 next January and to 68 in 2028.

As the plans emerged strongly as an election issue, ICTU general secretary Patricia King rejected as “wholly unacceptable” Government claims that a reversal of the policy – which would leave Ireland with the highest state pension qualifying age in the EU – was unaffordable.

“The pension issue was raised by ICTU as a matter of grave concern as far back as 2011, when the change was first proposed, and consistently thereafter with various government ministers and the Taoiseach. It has been included in successive Congress pre-Budget submissions,” she said.

She accused the Government of implementing measures – including reducing contribution rates for the self-employed – that would deplete the social insurance fund, which pays for old-age pensions.

Meanwhile, Siptu economist Michael Taft said the €217 million cost of reversing the pension age increase could be financed from the existing social insurance fund, which is currently running a surplus of €1.4 billion a year.

“The reality is that, in the short term, there would be no need to increase taxation, cut spending or borrow to finance the cancellation of the pension age increase,” he said.