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.

Health workers will in future be allowed 20 days bereavement leave on the death of a spouse or child after Fórsa won an important case in the Labour Court. The previous allowance was just five days.

The Court recommended that the changes should also apply in ‘section 38’ organisations, which are independent but directly funded by the State to deliver health services. The improvement will come into force on 1st October 2019.

The HSE had resisted the change, which was earlier introduced in the civil service, on the grounds of cost. But Fórsa official Brian Gorman told the Court that the employer’s figures were wrong, and the potential costs were much lower than it had estimated.

“We are talking about people dealing with the loss of a partner, son or daughter. We made the case that everyone in these tragic circumstances experiences tremendous grief, regardless of the sector they work in,” he said.

There are to be further talks on certain practical aspects of implementing the change, including dealing with backfilling where the need arises.

Unions are concerned that the recent announcement by the board to withdraw their governance by 1st December will cause further difficulties for staffing and services.

Prior to the board’s recent announcement, staff already had difficulties with proposed new rosters and staffing arrangements. The frustrations of staff with management’s handling of staffing and rostering were raised at a well-attended meeting of all union members on 20th May.

Unions say the existing difficulties have been compounded by the recent announcement by the board to withdraw in a row over funding and governance.

These developments were further discussed at a general meeting of all union members on 10th June. The meeting agreed to request the intervention of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to assist with the rostering and staffing issues and have deferred a ballot for industrial action.

Shay Clinton of Fórsa explained: “Some care staff have already resigned their posts from St Patrick's to take up opportunities elsewhere and there seems to be a difficulty retaining a HR Manager.”

Liz Curran of the INMO added: “Rostering and staffing difficulties have arisen as service users and staff have moved from the St Patrick’s campus into community houses.

“A row over funding between the Board and the HSE, the centre’s primary funding body, doesn’t help matters and increases the uncertainty for staff and service users,” she said.

Dave Morris of Siptu said: “Even though the unions previously raised concerns about the proposed recruitment of part-time staff, this has now added to rostering difficulties. Also, where there is already a demand across the sector for care staff, offering part-time contracts is not the solution,” he said.

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.

Stronger Together is the official podcast of Fórsa’s Sligo Health and Local Government branch and went live on the Anchor podcasting platform at the end of May.

The podcast is presented by Sligo branch members Irene Tiernan and Rodrigo Frade, and the first episode looks back on the previous week’s Health & Welfare divisional conference which took place in Sligo.

The podcast also features a report from the Local Government and Local Services divisional conference which took place in Kilkenny in early May.

Irene says the branch plans to use the podcast to provide quick and practical answers to members’ questions and to broadcast local branch news.

“We’re also hoping to feature members and officials as guests on the podcast. We think it’ll provide a new and very innovative way to enhance our branch communications, to get people involved in the conversation and boost the visibility of the work of our branch,” she said.

Rodrigo said the branch had been planning the podcast for some time. “We are always open to finding new ways to communicate with our members.

“In recent years we developed an informal and very effective meet-and-greet style of union meeting that we call the ‘huddle’. It proved to be a very successful means to recruit members and helping people to understand what the union does on behalf of members.

“The podcast has a similar objective, embracing the technology that allows us to reach beyond the workplace,” he said.

The latest episode was recorded live at the Art Deco theatre in Ballymote and features an interview with Pat Fallon about the benefits of being in a trade union. You can stream or download it now from Apple podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.

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 to health, local authorities, education 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 the overnight rates because inflation in accommodation costs – which make up the lion’s share of the calculation – were relatively low.

The civil service circular that gives effect to the increases was published this week. The measures will be applied across the public service in due course.

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.

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.

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.

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.