The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) is hosting a celebration of the role trade unions played in the struggle for LGBT+ equality in Ireland. The event, which marks ‘Pride Month,’ will include a discussion of how unions can help achieve marriage equality in Northern Ireland.

A discussion panel will feature trade union activist Kieran Rose, who was among the pioneers of trade union LGBT+ activism in the Local Government and Public Service Union, which is now part of Fórsa.

The panel will be chaired by Séamus Dooley of Congress’ Executive Council and will also feature Clare Moore, who is Congress equality officer in Northern Ireland. Archive material will illustrate the conversation and recount the progress from decriminalisation to marriage equality and beyond.

The event takes place in Books Upstairs, which has long supported the LGBT+ movement. For years the shop was the only to stock gay literature, and it was a vital meeting and information point for the LGBT+ community in Ireland.

The discussion takes place from 6:00pm to 7:15pm this evening (Wednesday, 26th June). Book your place by contacting Natalie Fox.

The Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA), a branch of Fórsa trade union, has told an Oireachtas committee that the Irish Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection need to approach their investigations into the status of Irish airlines’ contractor pilots “with the same focus and intensity as the authorities in Germany and the UK.”

The president of IALPA, Captain Evan Cullen, was addressing the joint Oireachtas Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection last week (Thursday 20th June) in a hearing about bogus self-employment.

Captain Cullen told the committee that approximately half of pilots operating in Irish-registered airlines are not employed directly by the airline they fly for, which he said is “an extraordinarily high-level for such an important skilled and safety-critical profession.”

He said Ireland’s rate of ‘contractor’ pilots is far higher than the European average. Across Europe, 18% of pilots have non-permanent indirect employment status.

He said: “In addition to the impact on individual pilots, and possible safety implications, the fact that in the region of 2,000 Irish-registered pilots are working as contractors means that the State loses out on the 10.85% Employers’ PRSI on those pilots’ salaries.”

Based on data published by the Department of Finance and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection in 2018, IALPA conservatively estimates that this could cost the State around €15 to €16 million per year on an ongoing basis.

Contract

Captain Cullen described the typical structure of the employment arrangements for pilots affected by these arrangements. He said the offer of a contract to a pilot by an airline is subject to the pilot becoming a director and shareholder of a pre-existing limited company.

“The company will typically have between three and eight other directors, but the pilot will not be told who those directors are. The pilot will only be allowed to fly for one airline under this arrangement, which is usually put in place by an intermediary agency,” he said.

He said the majority of the pilots subjected to these Irish arrangements are not Irish nationals, do not speak English as a first language and do not live or work in Ireland.

He added that while the position of self-employed contractors appears to be legal under Irish law, different pieces of legislation may view these contracts in different ways should they prove not to comply with the law. “In such instances, the pilot could be subject to sanction for a contracting arrangement that was effectively foisted on them,” he said.

Status

Captain Cullen told the committee that the Revenue Commissioners list a number of indicators of employee or contractor status. Irish contractor pilots only meet one of the 24 ‘contractor’ criteria, but they meet 23 of the ‘employee’ criteria.

“Based on this assessment, it is IALPA’s view that these contractor pilots are subjected to bogus self-employment and should be deemed to be employees and not self-employed contractors.

“The actual working lives of contractor pilots subject to bogus self-employment arrangements do not vary in any meaningful detail from their employee pilot colleagues,” he said.

He added: “Young pilots are particularly affected by precarious employment terms, with almost 40% of such young pilots having no direct employment relationship with the operator they fly for, and the vast majority of the ‘contractor’ pilots in Ireland are also relatively young.”

Captain Cullen told the committee that the contracting arrangements in question can have several consequences, including:

• The airline does not have to pay the 10.85% employer PRSI contribution which has long-term consequences for the contractor pilot
• The pilot does not enjoy the benefits or protections of employment law rights such as access to unfair dismissal legislation, paid maternity and paternity leave and sick leave benefits
• The pilot’s rights to participate in any form of collective bargaining and industrial action are effectively neutralised.

He told the committee that legislative change was needed to ensure that the practice cannot continue. These changes should be based on:

• Presumption that all workers are employees unless the opposite is proven
• Putting the burden of proof on the employer not the employee
• Ensuring that such arrangements are not imposed on any worker through duress or threat of contract refusal.

Case study

Captain Cullen outlined an example to the committee from 2011, when a German prosecutor asked the British authorities to search the UK premises of a company that provides pilot services to an Irish airline. The prosecutor alleged that the company in question was in breach of tax and social security law.

He said the German prosecutor stated that the agency in question was responsible for processing the monthly work performance for approximately 1,600 ostensibly self-employed pilots with the airline, through 300 Irish companies which had the legal form of a limited company.

“These companies were administered by accountancy firms specified on a list of ‘acceptable accountants’ that the pilots could engage with for the purpose of complying with the contract requirements. According to the German prosecutor, these companies may only serve to conceal an employment relationship with the airline,” he said.

A full copy of the presentation to the committee is available HERE.
 

A long-awaited circular on a facility for the purchase and transfer of retirement benefits for members of the Single Public Service Pension Scheme has been released by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER).

The circular (15/2019) provides single scheme members with a facility to purchase additional amounts to top up their pensions, and transfer amounts from other Revenue-approved retirement schemes into the single scheme. The circular takes effect from 1st October 2019.

The facility is aimed at single service members whose career in the public service may be shortened due to joining mid-career, taking career breaks, other unpaid leave or who wish to transfer in pension benefits from outside employments.

The scheme is a career-average defined benefit pension scheme, meaning that each year you bank amounts towards your retirement lump sum and your retirement pension. Anyone who joined the public service on or after 1st January 2013 are members of the single scheme.

Supporting documentation relevant to the purchase and transfer scheme will be made available on the single scheme website closer to the scheme/circular’s date of effect.

The circular is available HERE.

The battle for decent work “is a defining battle of our times,” according to Michael D Higgins. Speaking at the five-yearly congress of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), which took place in Dublin earlier this month, the Irish President applauded the role of trade unions in upholding the “hard-won rights of workers across Europe as we continue to face the challenges and obstacles to a fairer society.”

Delegates from unions representing eight million public servants across the continent were wowed by a wide-ranging speech that covered gender equality, workers’ rights, climate change and the civilising role of public services.

President Higgins said the abuse of digitalisation was helping to undermine hard-won workers’ rights as staff were required to register as self-employed, which he likened to nineteenth century working practices.

“Online workers often are not covered by employment law or collective agreements and seldom have access to social security, paid leave or paid training. The co-ordination and direction of employees by an algorithm owned by a company should never be allowed to divest the employer of their responsibility any less than a bogus self-employment does,” he said.

President Higgins criticised the displacement of secure jobs with precarious work in large parts of the European economy. “Workers are too often expected to demonstrate what is called flexibility, by which is meant a willingness and ability to readily respond to changing circumstances and expectations without adequate information or recompense.

“This flexibility is often not matched, however, with any security of tenure or appropriate income by employers, with the vista of zero-hour contracts now appearing ever-more prevalent,” he said.

He outlined a vision of Europe with excellent public services at its core. “Good jobs in the public sector mean quality services for citizens. Your members appreciate only too well that the services they deliver are not a cost to society, but an investment in our communities. This message must be taken to the heart of Europe,” he said.

The President lauded the trade union movement for its “powerful, proud tradition” on which the civil rights, anti-apartheid and equal rights movements could look to for support.

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing public services, which will be at the centre of the national and international response to global warming in the coming years, according to Fórsa.

Speaking at an international congress of European trade unionists in Dublin earlier this month, Fórsa Senior General Secretary Designate Kevin Callinan said the private sector alone could not successfully confront “the single most catastrophic threat facing humanity.”

“The public service must be at the centre of the national and international response to climate change. Of course there is an important role for private enterprise and innovation. And, as communities and individuals, we must adapt the way we eat, the way we shop, the ways we travel, how we use energy and water, the homes we live in, and the way we throw away our rubbish.

“But only the public sector – at a national and international level – has the resources, the scale of organisation, the infrastructure and the legislative and regulatory heft to meet this challenge head on in the fast-declining time available,” he said.

Kevin was speaking at the opening of the tenth Congress of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) at Dublin’s RDS. Over 550 representatives of European trade unions, with a combined membership of over eight million, were meeting in Dublin at the five-yearly conference of Europe’s largest trade union federation.

A week after Green parties recorded huge gains in many countries’ European Parliamentary elections – and in Ireland’s local elections – Kevin said that unions would become irrelevant to young people and others if they failed to prioritise climate change action.

“The industrial, technological, societal and political challenges of today have already weakened many long-established institutions, and rendered some irrelevant. Others, including trade unions, will go the same way if they fail to offer a strong and effective antidote to the challenges that workers, their families, and their communities face today. Trade unions will quickly lose any relevance they have for young people if we fail to put ourselves at the front of the fight for climate justice.

“Unions must go beyond the protection of the people we directly represent, to embrace and lead the imaginative policies and difficult actions needed to confront the single most catastrophic threat facing humanity. This is the primary challenge we face as trade unionists and as public servants. But it is also an opportunity to put collective action at the centre of our societies, along with public services and the people who deliver them,” he said.

Kevin said the spirit of recent “inspirational” Global Climate Strikes – led and run by school children and college students – could also be harnessed to address the low-paid, casual and insecure employment that young people experience when they enter the modern workforce.

“In recent weeks we have had a planet-wide lesson in effective, organised collective action, in the form of the Global Climate Strikes. These same inspirational young people are experiencing, or facing into, low-paid, casual and insecure employment, which is incapable of meeting the rising costs of coming of age.

“And they live and work under the shadow of automation, with its capacity to make their precarious position even less certain. We need to adapt our organisations, and our priorities, in ways that convince them that trade unions – also rooted in organised, participative, collective democracy and action – are available and open to them in a changing world of work,” he said.

In the week that US President Donald Trump visited Ireland, Kevin also pledged unions would combat populism and authoritarianism.

“Young workers also expect [trade unions] to use our strength and ingenuity in the face of a dangerous tide of racism, intolerance and authoritarianism; to confront the dishonest populists that have exploited inequality, poverty and insecurity in so many of our counties in recent times; and to insist that our national, European and international institutions adopt the interventions necessary to address the root-causes of discontent, and abandon the entrenched neo-liberal mind-set that feeds it,” he said.

The standard domestic subsistence ‘day rates’ paid to civil servants who are out of the office on business are to increase by 10% from Monday (1st July). Now that the changes are officially sanctioned in the civil service, they will be rolled out in non-commercial semi-state bodies and other parts of the public sector.

The ‘five hour rate’ is to increase from €14.01 to €15.41, while the ‘ten-hour rate’ goes up from €33.61 to €36.97.

The changes come on foot of a regular union-management review of the rates, which takes account of inflation in cafes, restaurants, takeaways and fast food outlets, plus – for the overnight rate only – accommodation costs.

No increase is sanctioned if the relevant consumer price index-measured increases come in below 5%. This means there is no increase in overnight rates because inflation in accommodation costs – which make up the lion’s share of the calculation – were relatively low.

Read the civil service circular HERE.

A bill aimed at safeguarding employees’ tips completed its second stage in Dáil Éireann this week. But the National Minimum Wage (Protection of Employee Tips) Bill, which has already completed all stages in the Seanad, will be blocked by the Government.

The Bill has been strongly supported by the ONE Galway movement, made up of Fórsa and other unions, student unions and community groups. The movement has campaigned for laws to protect tips intended for staff, and to stop the exploitation and precarious nature of work in the hospitality sector.

The legislation, which was initiated by Sinn Féin senators, would ban employers from withholding tips and other gratuities intended for staff. The proposed law would also require premises to clearly display the establishment’s tipping distribution policy.

But employment minister Regina Doherty said the Government disagreed with the specifics of the bill, and said she wold bring forward another. A similar approach led to significant delays in legislating on gender pay gap reporting last year.

ONE Galway dismissed the Government’s approach as being “in line with the demands from the Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) who want to retain access to tips, which they estimate make up approximately 10% of their revenue.”

The Government has said it will use the controversial ‘money message mechanism’ to block the legislation.

A flyer explaining public service pregnancy related sick leave (PRSL) has been produced by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in response to a request from Fórsa for further clarity on the issue.

It explains that where ordinary sick leave rules apply, workers have access to 183 days of paid leave in a rolling 4-year period. This is broken down to 92 days at full pay, and 91 days at half pay. However, on certified PRSL employees will never receive less than half pay.

If PRSL is exhausted, ‘extended’ PRSL would then be granted at half pay. This is not counted on sick leave record.

In circumstances where someone qualifies for Critical Illness Protocol (CIP), they would be entitled to paid sick leave of 365 days (183 days at full pay and 182 days at half pay) in a rolling 4-year period.

After maternity leave if all ordinary sick leave is exhausted and the CIP threshold is met, access to the equivalent number of days taken on PRSL subject to the 4-year sick leave threshold is granted. This does not include the ‘extended’ period of certified PRSL at half pay as this is not counted on your sick leave record. Once maternity leave has ended, any further sick leave will not be recorded as PRSL.

To find out more about access to PRSL, please refer to the relevant circular/administrative arrangements for your sector and/or contact your HR Unit/Manager/Department who will advise on what’s available.

A permanent forum for social dialogue, which includes the power-sharing government, trade unions, employers and other representatives, is needed in Northern Ireland, according to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

This was one of a number of actions demanded by ICTU’s Northern Ireland Committee as it sought the immediate restoration of a devolved assembly at Stormont.

ICTU’s Northern Ireland Committee is the largest cross-community civil society body in Northern Ireland, and represents all trade unions with members in the North.

The Committee also called for action on compensation for historical abuse victims, improvements in public sector pay and reform of welfare benefits.

A statement from the Committee affirmed its commitment to the restoration of devolution to Northern Ireland “within the framework of equality and rights set out in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements,” it said.

See related HERE.

Fórsa will be marching under the banner of Dublin City Council LGBT+ Network at the Dublin Pride parade this Saturday (29th June). The annual event has evolved from ten people protesting homophobic legislation in 1974, to over 60,000 people celebrating diversity and inclusion last year.

The union will also be supporting Dublin’s second annual Trans Pride Parade, which takes place on Saturday week (6th July).

Both events begin at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square at 12 noon, with the Fórsa contingent meeting in the union’s Nerney’s Court office at 11.30am.

A large Fórsa presence is expected at both parades, which are just two in a series of events of LGBT+ solidarity and celebration taking place across the country. These include Limerick Pride (July 5th–14th), Cork Pride (July 27th–August 4th), Galway Pride (August 12th–18th), and the inaugural pride parade in Carlow on Sunday 21st July.

See more about Dublin Pride HERE.

See more about Trans Pride HERE.

No country in the world will achieve its gender equality commitments before an agreed target date of 2030. That’s according to a new global index which examined efforts to end gender inequality in 129 countries by measuring progress using 14 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Countries were marked from zero to 100, with 100 meaning equality has been achieved.

According to the index, countries with an overall score of 90 or more are making excellent progress. However, no country succeeded in achieving a score above 90. Denmark is faring best, but is still slightly short at 89.3.

Ireland is placed ninth, with a score of 85.4. This is set to change in the next iteration of figures as that number was calculated before the 2018 repeal of the abortion ban.

The average overall score was 65.7, which is considered a poor result.

Countries that rank in the top ten – including Finland, Sweden, Norway and Slovenia – tend to have reasonably strong public services and social safety nets. Only 21 countries achieved marks of 80 or above.

Earlier this year, Fórsa became part of an alliance of over 60 civil society organisations working to ensure that Ireland keeps to its commitment to achieve SDGs at home and abroad.

The SDGs are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

Fórsa’s campaigns director Joe O’Connor is undertaking a 30-kilometre sponsored walk to raise funds for Pieta House this month, in an event that aims to raise mental health awareness.

Joe is walking in memory of his best friend Fergal’s late fiancée, Ann-Marie, who lost her life to suicide in January 2018. He will accompany Fergal’s friends and family from Ann-Marie’s final resting place in Eadestown to Djouce Mountain in Wicklow, where she got engaged.

The walk will commemorate Ann-Marie’s 32nd birthday and will raise vital funds for Pieta House, which has supported Fergal through this traumatic time.

Joe has paid tribute to Fergal’s determination in this difficult time. “Less than 18 months after such a tragic and life-shattering event, Fergal’s courage and bravery to have the strength to organise this event has been an inspiration,” he said.

More than €12,000 has been raised so far. If you want to support the initiative, you can donate online or contact Joe directly to sign his sponsorship card.