CE supervisors represented will engage in a 24-hour work stoppage on Friday 14th February. Meanwhile, it’s emerged that only two out of seven political parties, queried by Fórsa on the issue, have pledged to implement a 2008 Labour Court recommendation to give the staff access to an occupational pension scheme.

Fórsa says it plans to escalate the industrial action in February and March if there is no movement on the issue from a new government.

CE supervisors and assistant supervisors will join workers from ‘Section 39’ agencies in a march and rally on 14th February. The rally will conclude at the offices of the Department of Finance to highlight the failure of successive administrations to implement the 2008 recommendation.

Unions will rally behind a message for the new government: “Unfinished business: Don’t ignore community services.”

Support

Fórsa sought responses to a range of issues raised with political parties during the election campaign, which Fórsa published today. On the issue of implementing the 2008 Labour Court recommendation, only Labour and the Social Democrats expressed their support, while only Labour included a commitment to do so in the party’s manifesto.

The union’s assessments are based on party manifestos and other official election pledges. Fórsa also sent a draft to each party to give them the opportunity to clarify their positions if they wanted to.

Fórsa official Ian McDonnell said: “The new government is facing into its programme of work with substantial unfinished business they need to attend to. This affects a thousand hard-working community workers who’ve endured a 12-year delay.

“The stoppage will be followed by action from Monday 17th February, when supervisors and assistant supervisors will refuse to communicate with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. This will include email, telephone, mobile phone, letter, direct or any other such contact,” he said.

Escalation

Ian said that the action will escalate further from 24th February with a refusal to cooperate with welfare partners and, from 2nd March, refusal to cooperate with payroll, followed by a 24-hour work stoppage on Monday 9th March and a 48-hour work stoppage on 23rd and 24th March.

“In order to allay this action, the new government needs to step up and do the right thing. If they don’t engage with the unfinished business of three previous administrations, they will face into a succession of disruptions to the valued services provided by community employment schemes. Our members take this action reluctantly but feel they have run out of options after years of neglect on this issue,” he said.