If you’re thinking of taking a holiday, consider purchasing your travel insurance through KennCo who have been providing cover to members since 2012. You can have peace of mind for you and your family knowing that you are covered by our annual multi-trip travel insurance.

KennCo travel insurance has a range of great features and benefits including:

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• Cancellation and curtailment
• Lost baggage
• Public liability
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• Personal accident
• Winter sports and scuba diving included
• Worldwide and European cover

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The importance of travel insurance

You wouldn’t drive your car without motor insurance or leave your home uninsured, so why risk travelling without the necessary cover? Travel insurance is a necessity and should be part of your travel checklist when taking that well deserved break. Passports, tickets, money, insurance!

Why annual multi-trip?

It can be tempting to take out cover each time you take a trip but this can be timely and costly. Plus you run the risk of forgetting to get cover at all. One annual multi-trip policy will cover all trips. Whether you like to follow football or rugby, the odd weekend in a European city, a winter break, a summer holiday, or you take a trip around Ireland with at least one night’s pre-booked accommodation, then annual multi-trip is the right choice.

Cancellation cover

It’s important to have cancellation cover in place once you have booked your trip, if not before. Remember, it’s not just about when you’re on the way to the airport, once you’ve booked your flight or accommodation, you need insurance in place in case you can’t make the trip.

Be confident in your level of cover

KennCo underwriting provides a comprehensive worldwide annual multi-trip product that is competitively priced. This policy covers not only Fórsa members, but also their spouses, partners and unmarried dependent children under 18 years or under 23 years if in full time education. This policy automatically covers everywhere in the world.

Looking for single trip insurance?

You may only be planning on having a single trip in 2019, but it is still important to have travel insurance. Whether it’s a business meeting or a family holiday, situations may occur were you’re left wishing that you had taken out cover. With prices starting at just €11.22, you can get cover for lost baggage, medical cover or missed departures to name a few.

Don’t forget to purchase travel insurance as soon as you book that trip to avail of cancellation should you be unable to travel.

Terms and conditions apply.

For further information and quotes on our travel product why not give us a call on 01-499-4607 or visit our website.

This information is also available on the Fórsa website.

KennCo Underwriting Ltd T/A KennCo Insurance is regulated by The Central Bank of Ireland. KennCo Underwriting Ltd is a tied agent for Travel Insurance with ERV T/A ETI-International Travel Protection.

Many education workers are due to receive their next union-negotiated pay and pension levy boosts from 1st January. Under the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA), pay for staff on education department salary scales will go up by 1% for those who earn €30,000 a year or less.

The pension levy threshold will also rise to €32,000 for all who pay the levy, bringing a net improvement of €325 a year for most.

There’s a further pension levy boost for those who joined the public service after January 2013, and who are in the single public service pension scheme. They will now pay only two-thirds of the pension levy rate – a figure that will fall to one-third next year.

The PSSA, which was negotiated by Fórsa and other unions in 2017, will also deliver another 1.75% salary adjustment in September. These, and further pay boosts due next year, will apply to staff on education department scales.

However, the majority of school secretaries and caretakers are paid from a grant and are not on public service scales. Under the terms of a 2015 arbitration finding they are to receive a 2.5% increase from 1st January 2019. Fórsa is preparing to launch a major campaign next year for pay parity for these staff.

The PSSA was accepted in ballots of the members of the three unions that amalgamated to create Fórsa earlier this year. It will also see an end to the pension levy on any non-pensionable elements of public service incomes from January 2019.

Earlier this year, the union also insisted on early measures to address the ‘new entrants’ pay issue even though, under the agreement, this was not bound to be dealt with until 2020 at the earliest.
Non-pay provisions in the PSSA include strong protections against outsourcing.

Fórsa’s Support Our Secretaries campaign, calling for fair and equitable treatment for school secretaries, is beginning to intensify ahead of its official launch event on the 17th January.

The campaign aims to highlight the need for standardised and more secure employment terms for school secretaries, most of whom also work without any pension provision.

The official launch event for the campaign is taking place in the Members’ Room at the Royal Irish Academy on Dublin's Dawson Street*, and will feature a number of speakers, aiming to highlight the issues schools secretaries face regarding pay and conditions.

The campaign’s launch will also coincide with the delivery of packs to all schools around the country that contain key messages of the campaign.

Fórsa official Joe O’Connor says groundwork for the campaign is already taking place and that the official launch is the next step of the campaign which will seek to gain public support for the pursuit of reforms.

He said the union is talking to a wide range of public representatives, including Labour’s parliamentary party and Fianna Fáil representatives and the party's education spokesperson Thomas Byrne. 

Meetings have also been held with members of the Oireachtas Education & Skills committee, independent Senator Lynn Ruane, Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion and an upcoming meeting with Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin TD.

Fórsa has made a presentation about the campaign to the INTO principals committee in order to grow support. Joe said the presentation was well received and a motion to formally endorse the campaign has been approved by the INTO’s executive committee.

*Please note this is a change of venue from an earlier published version of this story.

Massive staff turnover in Ireland’s early years sector left over a quarter of services with staff vacancies last year up from 21% the year before. The stark findings of the most recent Pobal ‘Early Years Sector Profile’ shows an average staff turnover rate of 25%, rising to 34% in Donegal.

Fórsa, which represents many staff in the sector, says these high turnover figures are being driven by poor wages. The report also puts the average hourly wage of early years staff at €12.17.

The picture is even bleaker for early years assistants, who account for 48% of all staff working with children. They earn just €11.20 an hour on average. Pobal places qualification levels among the five main determinants of wages in the sector.

Fórsa organiser Katie Morgan said the findings supported the union’s view that professionalisation of the sector and increased access to training for early years staff would lead to better pay and better services.

“There needs to be recognition of the important and difficult work that early years staff do. Staff need to be valued and rewarded for their work and the workforce needs stability, just as our young children need stability. Nobody benefits from the instability that comes from high staff turnover. Better pay rates would address the problem, as well as the much-needed professionalisation of the sector,” she said.

The report also noted a significant increase – from 58% to 70% - in the proportion of staff who have completed Children First training over the past three years.

There is renewed hope that the Oireachtas will pass legislation allowing public servants to retire after age 65 before the Christmas recess.

This avoids more staff suffering a huge gap in retirement income when forced to leave work a year before they reach the new state pension age of 66. It follows earlier fears that the legislation would be delayed until next year.

Earlier this year the administration bowed to union pressure and agreed to legislate to give civil and public servants the option to retire at any age between 65 and 70 if they chose.

This was necessary because many civil and public servants depend on the state pension for a substantial part of their retirement income, but they are currently required to retire a year before that’s available.

Interim measures, which allow them to be re-hired until age 66, are unpopular as they treat staff as is they were newly employed. This also means a significant drop in income, even though they are still working.

The new legislation went to committee stage in the second week of December.

A Fórsa spokesperson said: “This issue has had a massive impact on the individuals who are caught offside by the current legal requirement to retire at age 65 or, in some cases, before.

“Each day that passes sees more workers forced to retire and immediately sign on for unemployment benefit because a large proportion of their pension is made up of the State old-age pension.

“Most TDs and senators understand the urgency of the situation but Fórsa would urge them, once again, to get this legislation on the statute book quickly.”

A survey of 590 Fórsa members over the age 60 has highlighted the benefits of being a retired Fórsa member. Almost two-thirds (62.2%) of respondents said they intended to continue their Fórsa membership after retirement.

The email survey was distributed to Fórsa members over the age of 60.

Fórsa official Joe O’Connor says that the findings of the survey are positive, but that there was work to do to improve awareness of the benefits of being a retired member.

“Keeping involved in the union’s work, in addition to campaigning and social engagements, were central to many people retaining their membership after retirement. Retirement is a time when people’s lives change and remaining involved with the union appears an attractive option for people who are at that stage,” he said.

Joe said there is scope to increase the number of retired members, and that a recruitment drive would facilitate making improvements to current benefits and adding new ones.

Respondents to the survey said they would be interested in increased services, such as access to a pension’s consultant, financial advice and pre-retirement planning courses or seminars.

Other suggestions included providing information on budgetary and legislative changes relevant to retired members and an increased number of services especially dedicated to retired members.

Joe said the next step is to make use of the survey’s findings. “Just over a third of respondents expressed an interest in participating in further research to consider the current working of the programme, so that could be the next phase of the project.”   

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has welcomed a significant increase in the amount of money people with disabilities can earn before they lose their medical card.

The Government recently announced that the so-called ‘income disregard’ would rise from €6,000 a year to €22,000. ICTU called this a “significant development in removing barriers to employment for people with disabilities.”

Unions believe the change, which is in line with a recommendation in the 2017 inter-departmental report ‘Make Work Pay,’ will remove the fear of losing a medical card for many people with disabilities who want to work.

People with disabilities are currently only half as likely to be in employment as other people of working age

As the first year of Fórsa draws to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on the year we’ve had. Our new union - 80,000 members strong - has achieved a lot since January, and is already facing injustice head on, in the workplace and in our communities.

Fórsa has shown it’s a force to be reckoned with.

As we sign off on our final bulletin of 2018, a special word of acknowledgement and thanks goes out to the many Fórsa members who will be working or on-call, maintaining vital public services over the Christmas period.

And we wish all our members a wonderful Christmas and a very happy and healthy New Year.

Have a good break. The news bulletin will return in January.

As SNAs will know, there is a bank of hours that, should there be work available, SNAs can be called on to work from time to time.

It's important to note that the '72 hours' is not a target. In many schools, there will be no need to work any additional time during the year.

More significantly, an SNA can only be asked to undertake work that is SNA-appropriate during this time.

Over the years we've come across some examples of work that SNAs have, on occasion, been asked to undertake that are unacceptable.

We are compiling a list of examples of these unacceptable practices. This list isn't exhaustive. We'll add to it if we discover other unacceptable and inappropriate practices.

The unacceptable practices identified so far include:

1. Gardening
2. Cleaning toilets
3. Working at the reception
4. Directing traffic
5. Laminating and shredding for the whole school
6. Painting classroom
7. Making tea/coffee for teachers and parents during meetings
8. Bar coding all books in the school
9. Cleaning the library
10. Building maintenance
11. Cleaning windows
12. Cleaning cars
13. Cleaning and mopping the floor
14. Homework club
15. Book covering
16. Cleaning
17. Administration/clerical Work (any work that would take work away from, or would normally be completed by a school secretary)
18. Breakfast clubs
19. Cleaning out lockers
20. Photocopying for the whole school population

Does an SNA have a supervision function?

The responsibility for supervision cannot be delegated to SNAs. This is clarified in Circular 30/2014, which confirms that supervision is a responsibility that lies with a teacher and not an SNA. It is, however, part of the SNA role to assist teachers with supervision but, generally, an SNA cannot be left in sole control of a class or playground.

Appendix 1 of the SNA contract clarifies this:

“Assisting the teachers in the supervision of pupils during assembly, recreation and dispersal form the classroom for one reason or another.”

This means that if a teacher is present and supervising, an SNA may assist. However, an SNA may not supervise by themselves. It's not part of their contract. There are only very limited circumstances where a school can make a case to allow an SNA to supervise.

It is particularly important to note that the Department of Education and Skills has a substitution scheme in place where a teacher is absent. There are no circumstances where, in the absence of a teacher, an SNA should be expected to take control of a class.

SNA contract issues: archive

Since April 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 info@forsa.ie. Please include 'SNA contract issues for the news bulletin' in the subject heading.

• 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?

The Limerick Writer’ Centre propose to publish an anthology of writings and artistic material in conjunction with the Limerick Soviet 100 Committee’s special celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Limerick Soviet.

Fórsa members are invited to submit material for the publication, illustrating their thoughts on the 1919 Soviet and/or its legacy for Ireland in 2019.

The Limerick Soviet was a self-declared soviet that existed from 15th to 27th April 1919.

A general strike was organised by the Limerick Trades and Labour Council, as a protest against the British Army's declaration of a "Special Military Area" under the Defence of the Realm Act, which covered most of Limerick city and a part of the county. The soviet ran the city for the period, printed its own money and organised the supply of food.

The event made world, as well as national headlines, at the time, and is still seen, internationally, as a major occurrence in labour history. 

Local and national figures will be invited to contribute to the publication. It will be edited by Dominic Taylor and John Liddy and published by The Limerick Writers' Centre in 2019, the centenary year.

Submissions should be made to the Limerick Writer Centre, 12 Barrington Street, Limerick, Ireland (limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com) by 28th February 2019.

Centenary – An anthology celebrating the Limerick Soviet 1919 is due to be published no later than October 2019.

Deliveroo riders in Britain have lost a high court battle for union recognition. The ruling upholds a previous decision that the riders are self-employed, rather than employees of the company.

The outcome is seen as a setback to trade unions and other campaigners who are seeking to protect workers’ rights and introduce basic benefits like annual leave and sick leave in the ‘gig economy’.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain had argued that the company’s refusal to engage in collective bargaining breached the rights of Deliveroo riders under the European convention on human rights. But the court ruled that the riders were not in an ‘employment relationship’ in the context of European human rights law.

The introduction of the statutory minimum wage reduced the gender pay gap for lower-paid workers in Ireland, but did not affect the wage gap at any other salary levels, according to a new report from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

The study Minimum wages and the gender gap in pay, examines how the gender wage gap changed following the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland in 2000 and in the UK a year earlier.

The report says the positive impact on the gender pay gap at lower income levels happened because women are more likely than men to work in low paid jobs. It found that salaries of the lowest payed men was 24% higher than the lowest payed women prior to the introduction of minimum pay. This dropped to 5% after it was introduced.

The introduction of the minimum wage in the UK didn’t have the same impact on gender pay differences because of different patterns of compliance.

Co-author of the study Karina Doorley said: “In the UK, most of those earning less than the minimum wage after its introduction were women while in Ireland, men and women were equally likely to experience minimum wage non-compliance.”