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It closes at 5pm on Tuesday 28^th February. Contact Linda Kelly at lkelly@impact.ie if you have any difficulty completing the survey.

A newly established ‘education and training sector candidate pool’ is to underpin promotion competitions for serving staff at grades III to VII in education and training boards and institutes of technology. The new arrangements, negotiated with IMPACT, will see 20% of vacancies in grade V, VI and VII posts filled by open competition.

Two new Department of Education and Skills circulars outline eligibility criteria for the recruitment and promotion of administrative staff in ETBs and IOTs.

IMPACT assistant general secretary Stella Griffin said the circulars clarify the process of confined competitions in the sector, and provide an improved path for professional progression for eligible staff. “The establishment of the ‘education and training sector candidate pool’ creates opportunities for experienced staff to seek promotion in a fair and transparent way. The new arrangements also create promotion pathways between the ETBs and IOTs,” she said.

Stella said the union had also negotiated a provision that ensures no loss of annual leave on promotion, subject to the limits set by standardised leave arrangements. “Professional progression for our members in this sector is an important issue, so we took steps to secure leave entitlements, ensuring there are no barriers to promotion,” she said.

The arrangements are to be reviewed within two years, with the involvement of unions as well as employers and the education department.

IMPACT’s IAESA branch, which represents airport middle management, technical and professional staff, is expected to be able to ballot its members on pay proposals soon. The union is negotiating in the Workplace Relations Commission on a deal covering pay, flexibility and future procedures for collective bargaining.

IMPACT official Johnny Fox said the parties have met a number of times, and believes the union is set to achieve a major breakthrough for the branch, which has sought a collective agreement for over three years.

“Once complete, this deal will see IAESA members in middle management and professional grades under the protection of a collective agreement for pay purposes. This will ensure the introduction of proper pay bands covering the various grades, replacing the current system whereby new recruits and promotees are offered personal contract terms often on inferior rates to existing staff,” he said.

IMPACT has secured an agreement with Tusla on the regrading of family support workers. The deal with the child and families support agency will see workers assimilated onto a new salary scale, with the arrangement backdated to January 2014. The staff will now be paid on same scale as unqualified social care workers.

A 2014 review of family support workers (FSW) recommended that they be regraded and their new grade title changed to family support practitioner (FSP). IMPACT assistant general secretary Chris Cully said that, despite the completion of the review in 2014, it took until December 2016 to get the recommendations approved by two Government departments.

“After securing approval at department level, we had to negotiate the terms of assimilation of the FSWs to the new FSP salary scale with Tusla. The salary scale for FSPs will be the same as the social care worker (unqualified) salary scale. We also secured an agreement that the effective date of assimilation will be 1st January 2014.

“It’s a very favourable outcome following a difficult process. There is no doubt that the threat of industrial action, which was backed by a margin of 98% last November, was pivotal in securing the final approval. This result, which will see a boost in pay for the new FSP grade, could not have been achieved without the tireless work of the family support worker representatives,” she said.

Clerical job evaluation

Chris said that substantial progress has also been achieved through a Tusla job evaluation scheme. A review of clerical and administrative grades was recommended by an independent report, following the transfer of staff from the HSE to Tusla.

“The review took a long time to get from agreement to implementation, but we are now at a stage where all appeals, dealing with grades III to VI, were finalised by 1^st February. The scheme doesn’t provide for assessing grades above that of grade VI, so people working above that grade were assessed by an agreed independent assessor. That process is ongoing,” she said.

Chris said that Tusla has also committed to an overall re-examination of the grading structures, in consultation with IMPACT, once the individual grade review and appeals process are complete.

“The purpose of the phase II examination is to ensure that the grading structures are consistent nationally, and to examine any regional disparities. We’re seeking the commencement of phase II of the review as soon as the all the appeals are completed. We’re hopeful that this may provide a further opportunity for some members who were unsuccessful in the first round of grade reviews,” she said.

Read our blog on TUSLA staff and the blame game.

High level talks between IMPACT and local authority employers focused on the issue of staffless libraries when the union met the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) last Friday (17^th February). And tomorrow (Tuesday) will see further talks on management plans to open all local government promotions to external competition.

The LGMA retreated on a threat to unilaterally scrap existing promotion competition procedures after a ballot of IMPACT’s local authority members overwhelmingly indicated a willingness to take industrial action on the issue. Instead, management agreed to talks.

There are agreements covering the extent of external advertising of promotional posts in every other part of the public service.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said the staffless libraries impasse is likely to lead to protests in the not-too-distant future. The union’s local government executive has met the relevant vocational groups to discuss the issue and how to proceed. Again, a ballot of members has given the union a mandate for industrial action if it remains necessary.

Health minister Simon Harris’s reported pledge to sack HSE managers is an attempt to divert criticism from his Government’s failure to reverse cuts in capital spending in the health service, according to IMPACT. Eamonn Donnelly, who leads the union’s health division, said it was standard practice for politicians to lash out at managers and administrative staff when facing criticism for their shortcomings.

Media reports said the minister had made the statement at a recent meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary group.

“If the minster’s reported comments are correct, it is the second time this year that Minister Harris has deflected blame for political failures by lashing out at unnamed staff who are doing their best with insufficient resources. If the Minister has identified underperforming managers he should use the ample powers he already has to address the issue. If not, he should support his staff and deal with the lengthening waiting lists and overcrowded emergency departments, which are primarily due to insufficient bed capacity and underfunded community health services,” said Eamonn.

Eighty grants of €150 each are available to assist children of IMPACT members to attend Residential Irish Language courses in Gaeltacht areas in summer 2017.

The grants do not apply to any Irish language courses held outside of designated Gaeltacht areas or to daytime-only attendance at Irish colleges in Gaeltacht areas.

The grants apply to children of IMPACT members who are aged between 11 years and 18 years of age on 1st July 2016.

For more details, download the application form here.

IMPACT and other public service unions are continuing to engage with the Public Service Pay Commission. The commission has been charged with giving inputs to Government and unions on how ‘FEMPI’ laws, which introduced pay cuts and the pension levy, can be unwound.

The ICTU Public Services Committee (PSC), which represents almost all the unions in the sector, has now made two formal submissions to the commission, along with a response to a submission by employers’ body IBEC. IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody, who chairs the PSC, said a third union submission on pensions is also being prepared.

There have also been a number of meetings between the PSC officers and the commission.

The value of public service pensions – compared to those in the private sector – is expected to be a significant issue in negotiations on a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement, which are to begin once the commission reports in the late spring.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) has argued that a higher value should be put on public service pensions because private provision has dropped. IMPACT and other unions counter that the value of public service pensions has fallen, while around a sixth of serving staff are now in a new – and much less costly – ‘career average’ scheme.

“It’s not acceptable to say that, because many private sector employers have walked away from their pension responsibilities, workers who still pay for and retain reasonable pension benefits should lose them too. That’s pretty much the definition of ‘a race to the bottom’,” said Shay. 

The forthcoming union paper on pensions, which will address these and other issues, is being drafted with the assistance of pension actuaries.

Former IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone is a member of the commission, which is chaired by former Labour Court chairperson Kevin Duffy.

Revised motor travel and subsistence rates for civil servants are expected to be announced shortly. Unions and management are close to reaching agreement on new rates after an adjudication on a new system to calculate the rates concluded last December. 

Under the terms of the Haddington Road Agreement, the Government signalled its intention to conduct a review of how the rates are calculated. The agreement committed unions and management to cooperating with the review, and with the implementation of a standardised system of travel and subsistence across the public service.

IMPACT national secretary Andy Pike said he hoped to see the revised system finalised and agreed by the end of February. “The revised system under discussion takes account of both overhead and running costs of using a vehicle for official purposes. It also provides a methodology that can be easily updated with new data. The intention is to create a more transparent method for the review of motor travel rates in future,” he said.

IMPACT will publish details and an FAQ document on the new rates as soon as they become available.

Unions have achieved two important clarifications to ‘career average’ pension arrangements, which were introduced for staff who joined the public service from 2013. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has agreed that members of the career average single scheme who are – or who have been – sick and in receipt of half pay will accrue pension benefits on a full pay basis.

Also, in cases where staff retire on health grounds, the pension and lump sum payable can now be enhanced by the award of additional amounts, subject to certain limits and conditions. These will generally be limited by the period between the retirement date and normal retirement age, with an overall cap of ten times the last full year’s accrued benefit.

Some 60,000 public servants – about a sixth of the current total – are now covered by the career average scheme, which is significantly less attractive than the pre-2013 pension benefits. The new arrangements were introduced by the Government in 2012 without agreement with the unions.

Read the circular relating to sick leave calculations HERE.

Read the circular relating to retirement on medical ground HERE.

In a letter to minister Fitzgerald, IMPACT official Geraldine O’Brien acknowledged the Programme for Government commitment to “take measures to reduce the gender pay gap,” including by requiring companies with more than 50 staff to undertake wage surveys. But she said this was “not sufficiently ambitious” given the scale of the challenge.

On average, women in Ireland earn 14% less than men. IMPACT says that requiring employers to reveal their record would increase the incentive to address the gender pay gap.

Geraldine said the union was calling on the Government to take decisive action on this important issue. “Specifically, we are calling for the introduction of regulations similar to those recently introduced in the UK. These regulations would require employers of a certain size to publish, rather than simply collect, data on the mean and median gaps in pay between their male and female employees,” she said.

Read the UK regulations here.

IMPACT activists joined pickets outside Tesco’s Baggot Street and Drumcondra stores in Dublin last week after workers in 16 shops across the country took strike action over their employer’s attempt to downgrade conditions for staff hired before 1996. IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan has urged members to give “practical support” to the workers by ‘shopping with their conscience’ and not passing Tesco pickets.

The staff affected, who earn a little over €14 per hour, say the company is targeting them because their older contracts give more secure hours and better pay than modern contracts. Their union Mandate has described the company’s treatment of the workers, all of whom have at least 21 years’ service, as “unjustified, unwarranted, unwelcome and unnecessary.”

Mandate claims that, if Tesco is successful in breaking pre-1996 contracts, management may target the contracts of 3,000 post-1996 workers. The union, which plans to ballot another 23 Tesco stores for industrial action this week, has welcomed Tesco Ireland’s agreement to enter into ‘without prejudice’ talks with a view to settling the current dispute.

Speaking outside the Baggot Street store, IMPACT lead organiser Joe O’Connor said: “IMPACT stands for decent work and fair pay for all workers, regardless of what sector they work in.”

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for a substantial increase in the hourly rate of the national minimum wage to align it more closely with a living wage – the amount estimated as necessary to cover basic living costs. The minimum wage is currently set at €9.25 an hour, while the living wage has been estimated at €11.50.

In a submission to the Low Pay Commission, Congress said there was widespread support for “aligning the hourly rate of the minimum wage with that of the living wage and called on the commission to “reflect this consensus.”

The commission, which recommends minimum wage improvements to the government, signalled a measly ten cent increase last year. Unions say the commission should take account of the need to protect living standards, not just maintain wage competitiveness.

Congress official Liam Berney said there is strong evidence of upward growth in earnings and profits, while employment is also increasing. “Just 3.5% of the workforce earns the minimum wage, so the impact of any increase in employment costs is minimal. It is a matter of deep concern to Congress that more than 73% of those on the minimum wage are women. So any increase in the rate will also help reduce the gender pay gap,” he said.

Meanwhile, the European Trade Union Confederation launched its ‘Europe needs a pay rise’campaign at a conference in Brussels last week. Its general secretary Luca Visentini said the response to the European economic crisis had been “wage cuts, a general dismantling of collective bargaining, and attacks on minimum wage systems,” which had compounded Europe’s economic and social difficulties.

“A pay rise would boost economic recovery by supporting demand, productivity and competitiveness, and make growth more sustainable and inclusive through more equality and fairer wage share and wealth redistribution,” he said.

The ETUC campaign website highlights a deflationary economic cycle where profits and productivity are rising, but “real wages have barely budged.” It says economists, and even some business leaders, have realised that by strengthening purchasing power, pay rises are an engine of demand, growth and jobs.