If you’re interested in applying for an exciting and challenging post in trade union organising or industrial relations, you should check out the five posts currently being advertised by Fórsa.

The union is looking to fill organising posts in campaigns, strategic organising, and training and development, as well as two industrial relations officer posts – one in Dublin and one in the West.

The deadline for applications is 1st March. Read more HERE.

Fórsa’s School Secretaries branch has seen a 10% surge in its membership since the January launch of the union’s Support Our Secretaries campaign. And an online petition  has secured over 6,500 signatures as the campaign continues to attract coverage in national and regional media.

Last week the Irish Independent published an extensive interview with school secretary Maeve Hurrell.  “You can’t put somebody at front-of-house for 28 years, then tell them they didn’t make the grade,” it read.

Meanwhile, the campaign was raised at the Oireachtas education committee last week as part of discussions on its 2019 work programme, which includes the status of non-teaching staff in schools following lobbying representations from Fórsa.

Fórsa lead organiser Joe O’Connor explained: “Education minister Joe McHugh attended the committee meeting, and was directly challenged by Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin to resolve this matter.

“The committee has decided to write to all relevant stakeholders, including Fórsa, requesting written submissions on the issue. A committee hearing will then be scheduled prior to Easter to consider these submissions,” he said.

Joe said the recent surge in school secretary membership was very encouraging for the branch. “A crucial objective of this campaign is to boost our school secretary membership, which strengthens our hand in any future negotiations.

The response to our online petition, membership packs and the huge amount of traffic on the Fórsa website and social media platforms reflects the widespread interest and support for school secretaries nationwide,” he said.

Download the school secretary newsletter HERE.

Fórsa has 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.

The union was responding to a newspaper report that the department has announced plans to roll out a special needs assistants’ (SNA) pilot project in 75 schools in Kildare, west Wicklow and parts of Dublin from September.

Fórsa officials made immediate contact with the department when the report appeared last week. The department confirmed that a pilot for a new school inclusion model for September is due to be announced in the coming weeks.

The union then issued a precautionary ‘non-cooperation’ instruction to members should any elements of the pilot scheme be rolled out in advance of discussions with Fórsa, which represents the country’s SNAs.

The union has repeatedly told the education department that discussions with SNA representatives will be necessary should the Department propose to implement recommendations arising from a 2018 National Council for Special Education (NCSE) review of the SNA service.

Fórsa official Sean Carabini said: “Such an engagement is necessary under the terms of the Public Services Stability Agreement (PSSA) and the union would view any attempt to implement any of the NCSE recommendations without talks as a breach of the agreement, which would trigger a stronger response from our members.”

Meanwhile, the Oireachtas education committee is now seeking written submissions on the status of non-teaching staff in schools to inform the committee’s 2019 work programme. This follows extensive lobbying representations by Fórsa.

Fórsa’s head of education Andy Pike said the union would be making its submission prior to the deadline: “The committee has sought submissions ahead of a committee hearing to be scheduled prior to Easter.”

Two-thirds of Irish adults think the pay of highly-trained childcare staff should reflect their qualifications, according to an annual study conducted by Early Childhood Ireland. Yet salaries in the early years’ sector remain among the lowest in the Irish workforce.

The survey also found that two-thirds of adults believe childcare should be available to all free of charge. The greatest support for this came from people aged between 25 and 34.

Responding to the survey results, Fórsa organiser Katie Morgan said the Government was falling short on its commitment to establishing a graduate-led workforce.

“While we appreciate the need for a highly-skilled workforce, and understand the benefits it would bring, we need a clear commitment from Government that it will fund improvements in pay and working conditions in early childhood to reflect these qualifications,” she said.

Fórsa says most staff in the sector are already highly-qualified. But services are hit by high staff turnover because remuneration does not match the level of qualifications demanded.

“We need increased investment to professionalise the grade. We welcome these survey results as they demonstrate strong public support for improved terms and conditions in the sector,” Katie said.

The research also found high support for better regulation of the sector, with 87% saying all private childminders should have basic first aid skills, be Garda vetted, and be subject to higher regulatory standards.

Early Childhood Ireland director of policy and advocacy Frances Byrne echoed Katie’s sentiments. “The survey results represent a vital mandate for Government to continue to robustly invest in and deliver further supports for the sector and families,” she said.

Read more HERE. 

Branches in Fórsa’s Education Division have made history by exclusively nominating women to go for election as divisional officers and executive members.

As a result Fórsa will have its first ever all-female executive whatever the outcome of the ballot, which takes place at the union’s Education Division conference in April.

All branches are entitled to nominate representatives for the roles of divisional Cathaoirleach and Leas Cathaoirleach, along with divisional executive members. Delegates to the divisional conference then select from the list of nominations.

The executive is then charged with implementing the policies adopted at the conference, and leading the division over the subsequent two years.

Fórsa’s head of education Andy Pike – who also carries responsibility for the union’s equality brief – said it was a fitting development.

“Fórsa’s membership is predominantly female, overwhelmingly so in the education sector. While it’s fantastic to see that reflected in the nominations to the education divisional executive this year, Fórsa must and will continue its work to encourage women to participate at all levels across the union, including these important national committees,” he said.

Fórsa is studying the detail of last week’s Labour Court recommendation regarding the nurses' dispute, and will also want to see the outcome of further talks on a proposed new nurses’ contract before fully assessing any implications for other civil and public service grades.

The Labour Court has given the parties three weeks to negotiate a new nurses’ contract. The details may be significant in terms of the total value of the outcome, while the nature of the productivity strings attached to the package will also be relevant if they are substantial.

If agreement is reached in the contract talks, the nursing unions plan to ballot on the outcome.

This means it will be the end of March, at the earliest, before any implications for the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA), which governs public service pay and related matters, can be fully assessed.

Fórsa was the first union out of the blocks when it issued a holding statement on the evening the Labour Court issued its recommendation (Monday 11th February). The Fórsa executive will be updated on developments at its scheduled gathering at the end of this month, and a Consultative Council meeting – which involves representatives from all the union’s branches – has been called for mid-March.

While ministers have expressed the view that the nurses’ Labour Court recommendation is in line with the PSSA, senior Fórsa officials have been assured that there will be continued engagement with the union and the ICTU Public Services Committee, which brings together virtually all public service unions.

Unions have told the Government that other grades will expect similar opportunities to have their pay reviewed during the lifetime of the public service agreement, which isn’t due to expire until the end of next year.

Legislation to extend unpaid parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks and increase the child’s qualifying age from eight to 12 years has again been backed by the Government after it appeared to have withdrawn support. Earlier, Fórsa wrote to leader of the Seanad, Senator Jerry Buttimer, urging him to use his influence to ensure the legislation’s swift progression. 

Although the union welcomed this new development, reports that the proposal will be implemented over a two-year period instead of immediately are seen as disappointing.

It was previously feared that Government would no longer support the Bill, and there have been significant delays in bringing it forward.

If signed into law the Parental Leave (Amendment) Bill would ultimately improve the work-life balance of Irish parents. Now that it’s passed all stages in the Dáil, the Bill is now set to be examined in detail by an Oireachtas committee.

Clerical and administrative staff are among the groups hardest hit by the cost of housing, which has risen much faster than incomes, according to a new report from the union-backed Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI).

Affordability in the housing market of the Republic of Ireland for different groups of workers, compares pay to the costs of buying and renting a house.

The report says the Irish housing market is “dysfunctional” and that significant sectors of the population find it difficult to afford accommodation, particularly around Dublin.

Clerical, sales and service staff is one of two groups of workers identified by the study as having particular difficulties. This is because they experienced significantly lower wage gains, compared to rent increases, between 2010 and 2018.

The NERI report also says that a housing affordability crisis is continuing unabated despite a rising level of new dwelling completions.

Fórsa has been campaigning for affordable housing and an end to homelessness. Along with other unions participating in the ICTU ‘raise the roof’ campaign, it has called for a major public house building scheme, and other measures to tackle the crisis.
 
Read the report HERE.

Management in the civil and public service should work with unions to ensure that the introduction of new technologies does not lead to job losses or poorer services. In a paper presented to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform last week, Fórsa argues 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 head of civil service Derek Mullen, who penned the paper, said the union would not oppose the introduction of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). “But technological advancement should not be at the cost of services or jobs,” he said.

He pointed to the experience of Revenue where new forms of work organisation, supported by retraining, had increased the tax-take and improved audit and fraud control rather than cutting jobs.

Derek said Fórsa would not give blanket support to the replacement of people-provided services with AI. “We will support properly thought-out automation, controlled by workers whose aim will be the continued enhancement and delivery of public services. Citizens do not want to talk to machines,” he said.

And he said new technologies would flourish best if staff had more autonomy over their working time.

The paper also argues against an expensive external consultant-led approach to technological development. “The diminution of in-house IT services over the last two decades has seen the growth of a hugely costly consultant-led approach to designing new systems. This must change,” it says.

The submission was written as part of the union’s response to civil service management proposals for procurement of new technologies, on foot of an automation pilot that’s been underway in a small number of civil service departments over the last year.

Read the position paper HERE.

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?

Fórsa intends to seek an official commitment that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Welfare will refrain from outsourcing job activation programmes to private companies in future. The move follows this month’s welcome Dáil vote to end the referrals to the discredited JobPath scheme.

Now the union wants assurances that the department will use community-based organisations like job clubs and the local employment service – along with department staff – instead of expensive and ineffective commercial suppliers.

The JobPath fiasco has seen two private companies receive almost €150 million between them since 2014. Yet only 9% of jobseekers who went through the scheme were still in employment after a year.

The JobPath companies received payments when jobseekers first presented, more cash when they were placed in a job, plus a bonus if a jobseeker gained sustained employment for a full year.

Fórsa official Paul McSweeney said outsourcing job activation was poor value for money. “JobPath has been an unmitigated failure in placing long-term unemployed in meaningful and sustained jobs. We will now be demanding the in-souring of this work with adequate resources to ensure that it’s done well in future,” he said.

The unions that amalgamated to create Fórsa just over a year ago opposed the outsourcing of job activation. The former CPSU and PSEU took the matter to arbitration, but were unsuccessful.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has released a policy-summarising factsheet on bogus self-employment as part of its continuing campaigning on the issue. The factsheet addresses the negative impact of deliberate misclassification of employees on workers, the state and society.

Bogus self-employment involves employers deliberately misclassifying workers as self-employed subcontractors to pay less, dodge their social insurance and pension contributions requirements, dodge benefits like sick leave, and avoid meeting basic employment law protections.

The factsheet also recommends actions to address the issue. It says workers should only be classified as self-employed if they meet agreed criteria, recommends making principal contractors liable for 10.95% employer PRSI payments for all sub-contractors.

Backdating all unpaid PRSI from employers who misclassified workers, using the WRC and the Labour Court as watchdogs, and strengthening Revenue’s powers to intervene on PRSI non-compliance are among ICTU’s other suggested actions.  

ICTU is also calling for legislation setting clear definitions for the terms ‘worker’ and ‘employee’ in order to clarify legal standing for those engaging in precarious work.

The factsheet is available to view HERE.

Trade unions celebrated Valentine’s Day last week by highlighting deficits in the transparency of tips policies in the restaurant and hospitality sectors. Members of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ (ICTU) One Galway group, which fosters cooperation between unions in the city, handed out leaflets urging customers to help ensure their tips actually go to the staff who serve them.

ICTU says one in three workers in the hospitality sector don’t get the tips customers leave, and that workers have no say in how tips are shared out. It has campaigned for legislation to improve transparency in the distribution of tips.

The National Minimum Wage (Protection of Employee Tips) Bill, which is expected to come before the Seanad this week, would give workers a legal right to their tips and require all restaurants to display a policy on how their tips are distributed.

The proposed legislation also aims to incentivise the introduction of fairer and more transparent systems for distributing tips in restaurants, pubs and hotels.

Last week’s ‘my tip my reward’ event took place on Quay Street in Galway. It coincided with a meeting between One Galway representatives and Senators Paul Gavin and Ged Nash, who are sponsoring the legislation.

Unions say tips are not a substitute for improved pay and conditions in a sector where workers are among the lowest paid, but that fairer distribution of tips could help them make ends meet.

You can find more information on the Bill HERE.

An evening surrounding the theme of women in media and politics will be hosted by Women On Air in Dublin on 6th March – two days before international women’s day. Former RTÉ political correspondent Martina Fitzgerald, who also wrote the 2018 bestselling book Madam Politician, will give her personal insight into the industry.

Martina recently sat on a panel at a Fórsa event which focused on encouraging more women (#MoreWomen) to run for election. This ties in with the theme for this year’s International Women’s day, #BalanceforBetter.

Proceeds from the event will help fund Women On Air, a voluntary network of women and men who want to see and hear more women on the airwaves. The group runs seminars, events and informal training workshops to help give women the skills and confidence to go on radio and television.

The event, which starts at 7.00pm and ends at 9.00pm, takes place on 6th March in the Radisson Blu, Royal Hotel, Dublin 8. Tickets cost €8 and can be purchased HERE.

Two Fórsa committees that bring together clerical, administrative and executive grades across all sectors of the civil and public service are to pilot a joint survey of workplaces. The two ‘equivalent grades committees’ will use the exercise to help identify the most important inter-divisional issues for the grades.

The survey will be open to relevant grades in workplaces across four of Fórsa’s divisions: civil service, health and welfare, local government, and education. It will seek the views of union members and non-members. 

The pilot will see the distribution of survey material to workers in DEASP Letterkenny, Portlaoise hospital, Central Statistics Office Cork, and IOT Waterford in April. It is anticipated that the exercise will be rolled out in other workplaces following analysis of the pilot results.

Fórsa general secretary Eoin Ronayne encouraged all available participants to engage with the pilot. “As these surveys are pilots it is important that we encourage a high level of engagement in these areas. This will give us a significant snapshot of the issues affecting members across divisions nationwide,” he said.

The two Fórsa cross-divisional committees have been exploring differences in pay, working time, and other working conditions for clerical, admin and executive staff in different parts of the civil and public service.

The clerical officer/grade III equivalent grades committee has identified differences in annual leave, pay, working time and flexitime for members of the grades across the civil service, health, education local government, and the non-commercial semi-state sector.

A separate equivalent grades committee for executive grades/grades IV-VII also found significant differences in annual leave, pay, compassionate leave and flexitime.

Fórsa’s Margaret Coughlan was among representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) who recently took part in a meeting of the National Strategy for Women and Girls committee, chaired by Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality David Stanton.

Margaret chairs ICTU’s women’s committee.

The National Strategy for Women and Girls report 2017-2020 provided a framework for action to address obstacles to women’s equality and to advance women’s leadership in a variety of areas. Implementation of the plan is monitored and run by the committee, which is comprised of a number of stakeholders including ICTU.

The strategy focused on the needs of working women by proposing increased investment in childcare, action to tackle the gender pay gap, and improvements to the conditions of women in precarious employment.

It also promoted improved access to education, training and employment opportunities for women in difficult circumstances, such as lone parents.

The report is available HERE.