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Almost 400 personal stories about soaring rents were submitted to housing minister Simon Coveney as part of the ‘secure rents’ campaign, which is being supported by IMPACT and other trade unions. The material is also informing a briefing document and lobbying tool in advance of the publication of the Government’s ‘residential rental sector strategy’ next month.

The campaign is calling for rent increases to be linked to inflation, and an end to landlords’ ability to evict tenants in order to sell properties. It also wants current four-year leases to be turned into indefinite leases.

The union campaign is asking people to continue to sign the petition and share it on social media.  A series of public meetings has also been arranged, at which people will be encouraged to put pressure on their local TDs. The meetings take place in:

• Limerick IMPACT office (Thursday 17^th November at 7pm)
• Galway Harbour hotel (Wednesday 23^rd November 23^rd at 7pm)
• Cork Imperial hotel (Monday 28^th November 28^th at 7pm)
• Dublin Liberty Hall (Monday, 5^th December at 7pm).

IMPACT lead organiser, Joe O’Connor said: "The living standards of 750,000 renters across the country are sinking under the weight of consistently exorbitant rent increases. The latest Daft.ie quarterly figures report the highest rate of annual increase ever on record of 11.7%, with Savills projecting that this is set to rise by a further 26% over the next two years.”

#SecureRents  SecureRents.com

IMPACT’s Special Education Needs Organisers’ (SENOs) branch has secured agreement on the formation of a working group to examine reducing workloads without affecting services to children with special needs.

Talks with management followed a decision by the branch to serve notice of a work to rule in October. The dispute followed a refusal of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to increase the number of SENOs employed by the Council. IMPACT official Tony Martin explained, “There’s been a dramatic increase in workload due to the chronic understaffing at the SENO grade.

“The service has lost 18 posts since 2009. The branch is seeking agreement on a realistic new staffing structure that provides sufficient staff to ensure adequate service provision.

“The loss of posts since 2009 has led to a dramatic increase in the workload for existing SENOs, and this has had a knock-on effect on the delivery of services. This is why we felt industrial action had become necessary. SENO members have an absolute commitment to ensuring the service is properly staffed.

“The formation of the working group, which will have a short turnaround time, means that we can begin to look at resolving the issue without any disruption.” he said.

IMPACT’s SENO members are employed by the NCSE to asses and process applications for additional supports for pupils with special education needs. The SENOs provide a crucial link between schools, the NCSE and parents for the delivery of SNA and home tuition services.

Representatives of early childhood education providers and care staff will protest outside Dáil Éireann tomorrow afternoon (15^th November). The rally, which starts at 2pm, will condemn Government failure to adequately fund childcare and other early years’ services.

The Association of Childhood Professionals (ACP) and IMPACT say Budget increases in childcare funding are inadequate to ensure high quality support for all children or to support a living wage for early year’s staff.

IMPACT and the ACP will demand significant increases in State investment in early childhood education and care to allow the professionalisation of the sector so that staff providing quality services can be properly rewarded. A recent ICTU survey found that, although Irish parents pay dearly for pre-school care, early years staff – including well-qualified workers – could earn as little as €5,150 a year in an increasingly casualised sector. Turnover rates for childcare professionals stand at 22%, while Ireland spends just 0.2% of GDP on childcare compared to an OECD average of 0.8%.

IMPACT organiser Una Faulkner said: “Inadequate capitation payments are driving down wages because employers are being asked to provide services below cost. Low pay, poor career prospects, and long periods off-payroll during the summer months, are damaging early years’ service quality by driving staff out of the sector.”

Marian Quinn of the ACP said: “High quality early childhood education and care is hugely important for young children and early childhood professionals play a pivotal role in supporting children and families. Providers and employees are subsidising what should be state-funded services through low pay and the Government has not consulted the industry on – or provided enough resources to support – the implementation of new qualifications and regulations, or the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme.”

The joint IMPACT-ACP campaign is providing an opportunity for staff and service providers to stand together and demand a change of attitude and policy that will result in the positive development of the early years’ profession. Both organisations have called on their members to support the 15^th November protest and engage with parents and elected representatives to highlight the difficulties being experienced in the sector.

The Irish Government has formally committed to accepting 200 child refugees from camps in Calais following a Dáil vigil organised by the ‘Not On Our Watch’ campaign.

IMPACT supported the vigil at which Mags O’Brien, chair of the ICTU Global Solidarity Committee, called on the Government to provide asylum to 200 unaccompanied children from refugee camps in Calais. "Ireland has to be dragged sometimes. I’ve been on campaigns where we’ve pleaded and we’ve begged for what should be a civil right - for instance, divorce was one of the main issues I was involved in. I’m tired of saying that Ireland has to wake up to the fact that there are human rights and that we have to respect the human rights of everybody,” she said.

Mags said global solidarity is always a trade union issue. “I’m sure you know the old saying ‘an injury to one is the concern of all’. A wrong done to any country is a wrong done to us. This is a trade union issue. Some of our people went to Calais recently and were appalled, upset and so angered by what they saw: that’s part of why we’re here supporting this. This should not be happening in our name or on our watch.

I am so tired of having to ask politicians for something that should be granted as a right to people. I think it’s a crying shame and a disgrace that, in this day and age, we can’t even take 200 children. Until we get that far we can forget about having the wider debate about the fact that we are all immigrants really, or that we are a country that has lost a lot of our population to emigration. I’m the child of immigrants and I know exactly what my parents went through when they first moved here. I just think we have to keep saying ‘not in our name; not on our watch," she said.

A post on the campaign’s Facebook page from last Thursday states that the passing of the Not On Our Watch motion “would also not have been possible without the support of those organisations including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and many NGOs.”

IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody led a union delegation that met public spending minister Pascal Donohoe in Dublin last Monday (7^th November). The meeting was quickly convened after IMPACT and other unions reacted to an earlier Labour Court recommendation in the garda dispute, which went beyond the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement (LRA).

Cody, who also chairs ICTU’s Public Services Committee, told Minister Donohoe that early talks on an acceleration of pay recovery for all public servants were now essential. He said the large majority of public servants still wanted pay restoration to be managed through a negotiated public service-wide agreement. But he said this would not be possible if certain groups – whether inside or outside Lansdowne Road – were treated more favourably than others.

Following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday (8^th November) Minister Donohoe acknowledged that the Labour Court recommendations in the garda dispute had wider implications. He also repeated that the Government was committed to a public service-wide agreement, although he stressed that there were budgetary constraints on further spending.

Meanwhile, the Public Service Pay Commission held its first meeting last week, and the possibility of its making an interim report, which could inform early talks, has been mooted. The outcome of garda ballots, which conclude later this month, will also need to be considered by all the parties.

At last week’s meeting with unions, Minister Donohoe also agreed to maintain contact with IMPACT and other unions on the matter. Unions have subsequently been in close contact with his departmental officials.

IMPACT’s Consultative Council, which is made up of representatives of all the union’s branches, will hear a report on these developments tomorrow (Tuesday) and a meeting of the full ICTU Public Services Committee takes place the following day. Shay Cody will tell the meetings that, if the Government agrees to accelerated negotiations, they are likely to take place early in the New Year.

The Labour Court issued the Garda recommendations late on Thursday 3^rd November. Next morning, IMPACT was the first union to say the proposals went beyond the terms of the LRA, and said they created “a material change in the situation.”

In a statement, IMPACT called on the Government “to make immediate arrangements for negotiations with ICTU’s Public Services Committee aimed at significantly accelerating the timetable for pay restoration and addressing any other issues that arise” from the Labour Court recommendations. IMPACT officials also set out the union’s case in a series of high-profile media appearances on Friday (4^th November) including RTÉ’s 6.01 news, TV3 news, UTV news and national radio.

IMPACT had also made a series of media interventions in the period leading up to the garda Labour Court recommendation, in which it warned that other claims would inevitably emerge if certain groups of public servants were seen to get ‘special treatment.’

At 16:34 last Monday afternoon (7th November) women across France quietly packed their bags and walked off their jobs. This was to mark the precise time at which they effectively stopped being paid for 2016. Women in France are paid 15.1% less than men, and at 16:34 last Monday there was 15.1% of the year left.

In Ireland, the gender pay gap currently stands at 13.9%. This means that women coming into work this morning were, relative to their male colleagues, effectively working gratis until the end of the year.

Last week’s French protest was inspired by an Icelandic movement which has seen women walk out of work on October 24th for the past 11 years. Initially, the women downed tools at 14:08, but as the pay gap began to shrink they left later each year. In 2016 they left at 14:38 to reflect the little progress that has been made.

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Clerical and admin staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda have escalated their industrial action in a dispute over staff cuts that have closed the hospital’s health promotion department.

Staff have been observing a work to rule, including a refusal to provide statistical information to management, since early November. From today (Monday 14^th November) staff will stop collecting emergency department fees and will cease to submit completed claims to health insurers.

A massive 95% of staff voted to act in response to the hospital group’s decision to let several clerical officers go.

The staff were working on agency contracts, which IMPACT wants converted to permanent posts. Some of the workers were dismissed with just 24 hours’ notice. The rest either have no contract or have short-term contracts, many of which are due to expire shortly. They are among the lowest paid staff in the hospital.

The union said a review by hospital management found that the existing 47 additional clerical officers were needed to run the hospital. It has advised members not to cooperate with redeployment and not to carry out the work of dismissed colleagues.

IMPACT official Ray Ryan said: “We had no choice but to ballot our members for industrial action to protect staff whose jobs have become vulnerable and to convince management that all these posts are necessary and should be filled permanently.

“Senior management have refused to take our concerns seriously. At a recent meeting with management they informed us there was nothing new to discuss. We’ve made it clear to management that this is completely unacceptable. The escalation today is due to management’s failure to make any progress on this issue,” he said.

IMPACT has advised its members not to co-operate with redeployment and not to carry out the work of vacant posts. Ray added that he is investigating reports that that work in dispute is being undertaken or undermined by management or other categories of staff. He has advised management that this could result in more serious action being taken in affected areas.

Ray said IMPACT remained open to discussions with management.

IMPACT suspended its industrial action at Templemore Garda college after management agreed to a review of pay, grading and staff numbers. The union also secured commitments on eight new permanent posts, with five additional staff on a relief panel.

The dispute, involving cleaners, centred on the need for more staff to deal with increased student numbers as the college becomes fully operational. A work to rule by members of the union’s FGE branch had led to the closure of guest accommodation at the college.

IMPACT national secretary Andy Pike said the union had won the immediate recruitment of two new service attendants to ease workload pressures. “We have also secured agreement on establishing a new cleaning supervisor post,” he said.

The review will involve an industry expert who will ascertain current and future staffing needs at the college to inform future negotiations. It will:

• Identify the structure of the enhanced staffing compliment needed to service existing and new facilities
• Consider all aspects of service delivery in the college
• Examine industry norms in both the private and public sector
• Allow IMPACT and college management to meet with an independent industry expert.

The review, which will examine rates of pay and appropriate grading for staff, is to be conducted by mid-December.

Andy said FGE had secured a significant win in a difficult dispute. “Our members undertook this action to highlight that their work is a crucial part of the smooth operation of a busy training college, and that their capacity needed to be expanded as the college’s operational capacity grew,” he said.

An industrial action ballot of library staff is underway over fears that the introduction of ‘staffless’ library services will lead to poorer services and job losses. IMPACT believes management plans for a large-scale pilot of staffless services during evenings and weekends could ultimately lead to completely staffless libraries with sharply limited services to the public.

The union says library staffing is already at an all-time low and that local authorities, which treat libraries as a ‘Cinderella service,’ will inevitably seek further savings by extending unstaffed services into core opening times.

Staff fear that the extension of staffless arrangements will leave library users unable to get assistance from trained and qualified staff or benefit from cultural and educational events. IMPACT says this would hit less advantaged communities and individuals hardest, because wealthier and better educated groups generally need less help and can afford to pay for more cultural and educational experiences.

Last week the union outlined its campaign of opposition to management plans to pilot staffless libraries in 23 locations across the state. It says a previous pilot in three locations demonstrated that the vast majority of users continued to visit libraries during core, staffed hours.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said: “This initiative is a sinister plan to cut costs and services under the guise of extending opening hours. Our libraries remain critically underfunded and nobody seriously believes local authorities will resist the temptation to save more cash by replacing staffed hours with the much more limited range of services available on a staffless basis.

“This will short-change communities. There’ll be no school visits, no storytelling, no help to find what you want, no security presence, and none of the hundreds of educational and artistic events that libraries provide throughout the year. Everyone will lose out, especially the elderly, students and people from disadvantaged communities and backgrounds. Meanwhile, management’s own data from the initial three pilots clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of us prefer to visit our local library during core hours when expert staff are there to help.”

Mr Nolan said the union was also concerned about the possible erosion of staff terms and conditions and health and safety protections for library users and workers.