"Staff are struggling to fill their cars with petrol just to get to work and deliver services. They're feeling helpless. But when I talked to them about the pledge and about what they could do, it turned union members into union activists. We're not onlookers anymore. We're active participants. It's bringing everyone together. It's given us a purpose.
- Brenda, Nenagh Hospital
That transformation didn't happen overnight. Over the past eight months, thousands of public service workers have been building towards this moment, talking to one another, workplace by workplace, about what it would take to win 'A Better Deal'.
Now, the campaign enters a new phase. After months of workers organising and clearly setting out their demands, government has yet to establish a credible basis for negotiations. 19 public service unions are now preparing for industrial action ballots while the government stalls.
Extensive listening exercises
The first conversations began long before pay talks stalled. They started with one of the union's largest member listening exercises, as thousands of public servants completed surveys late last year. The message was remarkably consistent.
Workers spoke about wages that continue to lag behind the cost of living. They spoke about housing costs that are forcing colleagues to leave their communities and, in some cases, the country altogether. They spoke about overstretched public services, recruitment and retention problems, the importance of protecting remote working, and the feeling that public servants were being asked to do more while falling further behind.
For Neil Mathlin in Naas Hospital, those pressures are impossible to separate from everyday life.
"Work is very important to us all, but it's also very important that we're remunerated fairly so we can enjoy our lives and not feel the stresses associated with the cost-of-living crisis."
With a young family, every weekly shop, every tank of diesel and every activity come with another financial calculation. He's also watched colleagues leave.
“Colleagues that I work with here that have left their positions within this hospital because it's getting too expensive to rent or to buy in this area, or indeed that if they have to travel any form of a distance, that that is an expense on them, they're not able to come to the place that they work because it's costing them too much money. Our services are constantly being stretched.”
Those weren't assumptions made by union officials. They emerged from extensive member surveys and shaped the 'A Better Deal' campaign from the outset.
Workplace organising
Thousands of organising conversations were then carried out by workplace representatives across the civil and public service.
And from those conversations came a simple pledge: no agreement without 'A Better Deal'.
More than 7,000 workers signed the pledge during the campaign's pilot phase alone.
Once the campaign moved into workplaces, representatives across more than 500 workplaces and 95 Fórsa branches put the union through a large-scale structure test.
They identified gaps in organisation, strengthened workplace networks and built a clearer picture of member support across the civil and public service, ensuring the campaign was ready for the challenges ahead.
New life in the union
For Mick, a workplace representative in An Coimisiún Pleanála, the campaign became a way of bringing new members into union life.
“I got involved in the Better Deal campaign because of all the benefits it offers, and it has helped me bring along new members within the union and encourage them and see how the collective bargaining process can work.”
He says protecting remote working is one example of what members want to defend.
“Remote working. It's a benefit to all young and old. I think it keeps a community alive and while people will still go into work, they can choose their days to stay at home. They can meet people for lunch. They can go for walks early within an area. It keeps movement within the area.”
A movement of workers
Across the country, members repeatedly connected their own working lives to the wider problems facing society. In Galway, Liam points to housing, congestion and commuting as issues that can't be separated from public service pay. He says the Better Deal campaign is like a “movement across the public and civil sector.”
“I want a better deal for investment in housing. There are people in their 30s and 40s still living in rented accommodation, living with their family. There's no accommodation available for them. You know, it's delaying aspects of their lives, trying to start a family and has huge, huge negative effects on people's mental health. People are really struggling at the moment with the cost-of-living crisis, and my colleagues and I deserve fair pay for a fair day's work.”
It’s personal
For Gwen Byrne in Naas Hospital, the housing crisis isn't an abstract political issue. It's personal.
“I lost my daughter because she couldn't get a house. She left this hospital, so she did. She had a permanent job, and she went to Australia with my three grandchildren and her husband. So that's why I'm very passionate about this. I want 'A Better Deal'. So the young people of Ireland can buy a home that they don't have to leave our country to go set up in another country, that they can stay in their own home.”
In Dublin, a local authority worker is currently living in emergency accommodation. He says the cost-of-living crisis has left him unable to secure a home of his own.
"I'm living in a hostel at the moment, and I can't afford the rent. I'm struggling. Inflation has gone up but our wages haven't kept pace. I just can't afford it anymore and it's affecting every part of my life."
Again and again, workplace conversations returned to the same themes. Members wanted fair pay that kept pace with the cost of living, investment in housing, properly staffed public services and protection for flexible and remote working.
They cannot ignore us
As Brenda, who works in Nenagh Hospital, said: “It's not just putting your name on a page, it's sending a powerful message to government that they cannot ignore us.”
Above all, members want a meaningful say in the decisions affecting their working lives. As Maria Collery, who works in local government, put it: “The Better Deal campaign is showing members that there is strength in numbers.”
The widening gap
The decision to ballot does not mark the beginning or end of the campaign. It marks the point where months of workplace organising begin to carry industrial weight. Workers have consistently argued that any new agreement must address the widening gap between pay and the real cost of living.
While public service pay increased by 15.75% under recent agreements, prices increased by more than 20% over the same period, leaving many workers worse off in real terms. For lower-paid workers, significant gains were made, but these still lagged behind the 34% increase in the National Minimum Wage.
Now the question returns to the workplaces where this campaign began.
As Sharon, a workplace representative in Naas Hospital, puts it: "The more united we are, the stronger we are as a union."
Members decide what’s next
The members who built this campaign through thousands of conversations, workplace meetings and pledges will now decide its next steps.
Because strong negotiations don't begin around a negotiating table. They begin in organised workplaces at the ballot box. And they are won by workers who no longer see themselves as onlookers, but as participants.
The national ballot of Fórsa members working in the public service opens on Tuesday 4th August and closes on Tuesday 1st September. For more information visit our ballot hub here.
Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa.
