Average hourly earnings in the public sector have fallen by 5.4% since the end of 2008 according to new official data. Weekly public service earnings decreased at nearly the same rate (5.1%), or just under €50 a week.

The figures, from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), do not include the so-called pension levy which has further reduced public service pay by 7% on average.

Hourly earnings in the private sector were stagnant, with average hourly pay the same at the end of 2008 as it was in the last quarter of 2013. But weekly earnings in the sector fell by €21.63 (3.4%). The difference in weekly and hourly earnings in the private sector reflects decreases in working hours.

The difference between the sectors demonstrates how average earnings figures conceal the varied impacts austerity has had on workers. In the public sector, pay cuts were the main vehicle for reducing pay costs during the recession, along with significant employment reductions on a voluntary basis. In the private sector, the main vehicle for reducing wage bills was job cuts – including compulsory redundancies – and reductions in paid hours, along with some pay reductions.

A sectoral breakdown of the figures shows the biggest decline in weekly earnings (11%) was in the human health and social work sector, a category dominated by the public service . The biggest increase in weekly earnings was in the information and communication sector where weekly wages increased by 6%.

As well as providing further evidence of the hardships endured in the five years since 2008, the recently-released figures emerged as the debate surrounding pay increases begins to gain momentum. The IMPACT ebulletin recently reported that small but significant pay deals were starting to be negotiated in the private sector.

Noreen Moloney

Maintaining nationally-agreed pay and working conditions in new regional ‘hospital clusters’ is a priority for IMPACT, the union’s Health and Welfare Divisional Council heard yesterday. The union is also concerned that the range, quality and availability of hospital services is at least maintained in the new system, amid concerns that centralisation will mean patients having to travel long distances to get certain services.

Workers’ representatives from England, where a similar system is already in place, warned that some UK hospital trusts have gone bust.

The new model – currently being rolled out in the West-North West region – will see the establishment of six large hospital groups nationwide, plus the national children’s hospital. Each group will include a range of hospitals providing general medical, acute care, day surgery and elective inpatient surgery.

Three of the seven clusters have appointed CEOs and it’s expected that the others will be appointed by the end of this month.

IMPACT official Richy Carrothers said IMPACT had established a forum for hospital representatives in the West-North West region. Representatives from the forum meet with management from the hospital cluster. This approach will be followed in other areas.

But maintaining national bargaining is also a priority. “Our main concern is that the pay and working conditions for the staff working in these hospital clusters is set at national level, not by each of the seven individual hospital clusters,” said national secretary Louise O’Donnell.

Trevor Johnson, regional head of health at UK trade union Unison, told the meeting about pitfalls in the English system. Some English hospital trusts in England went bust and had to taken back into central NHS control.

IMPACT has called time on the exploitation of residential care staff, as a series of information meetings gets underway across the country about sleepover duties and excessive working hours.

The union campaign highlights the fact that many health employers regularly breach EU and Irish working time legislation, with residential care staff routinely expected to work 63-hour weeks. The legal maximum is 48 hours.

In her blog for the IMPACT website, organiser Una Faulkner explained, “This issue is about the substantial hours that workers spend on-call while they are in-situ at residential facilities over night. ‘Sleepover’ duty, as it is known, is part of the working week for residential care staff. The problem is that health employers do not treat these ‘sleepover’ hours as working time for pay purposes, or when they’re calculating the time that can be legally worked. This means that staff are expected to work excessive hours.

“They receive a ‘sleepover’ allowance of just €5.40 an hour, which is well below the statutory minimum wage of €8.65. It is usual for staff to be actively working to provide care during some or all of the ‘sleepover’ period” she said.

IMPACT has already lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission, saying that employers are breaching EU rules by not counting ‘sleepovers’ as working time.

The union wants staff to work a maximum of one ‘sleepover’ a week on average. “This should be worked as part of the 39 hours set out in their contracts. Any work beyond 39 hours, including so-called ‘sleepovers’, should be paid as overtime,” said Una.

She said this would improve the management of time and resources because staff would not find themselves pushed beyond the legal limits. “Ultimately, these measures would also improve the quality and level of care.”

IMPACT’s local government division has called on the union’s local authority branches to engage in discussions about staff issues arising from the abolition of town councils. At a special meeting of branches last week, the union’s national secretary Peter Nolan said branches that had not already started talks should immediately seek discussions with council management.

He said the union’s priority was to seek to avoid the compulsory relocation of staff who work for abolished or merged councils. “The best way to do this is to bring services closer to local communities by identifying what work or services can be transferred out to locations where town council staff now work.

“We need to protect members and seek to ensure that whatever new arrangements are put in place do not force them into unacceptably long commutes or relocate them from their centre of operations and out of the communities they serve,” he said.

Eighty town councils are to be scrapped under the Local Government Bill, which was published last October. The new legislation will also see the number of councillors reduced by more than 40% – from 1,627 to 950 – with councillors representing municipal districts at county council level. Six city and county councils, in Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, are also being merged into three new councils.

Policy and regulatory failures have caused significant losses for hundreds of thousands of pension scheme members and seriously eroded confidence in the principle of pension provision, according to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

Addressing a hearing on pensions at the Dáil Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, ICTU official Fergus Whelan said few well informed workers believe their pension fund savings are safe.

He said state and pensions regulators had failed pension scheme members and those responsible for the mess – including successive governments, public officials, and the pensions industry – got it totally wrong. Among the policy and regulatory failures cited by Mr Whelan were:

• Government and the regulator clung to a funding standard that artificially overvalued liabilities
• Government levies on pension schemes, which he called a confiscation of pension savings, undermined schemes at the worst possible time;
• Regulatory failure encouraged a flight from ‘defined benefit’ schemes and resulted in heavy losses for members. 

Mr Whelan warned that many people close to retirement will “slowly descend into poverty from the moment they retire. But the fall into poverty will be rapid if high inflation returns.”

He welcomed Government plans to address the pensions crisis, but said it would not succeed without proper regulation. “Congress is concerned that the term ‘pension reform’ has become a euphemism to cover policy and regulation failure, the transfer of pension risk from employers to workers, and attacks on social security provision for the elderly,” he said.

Ireland has been ranked 12^th out of 28 EU countries in terms of job quality. The European Just Jobs Index (JJI), which ranks jobs by factors like employment levels, social security, rights at work, social dialogue and equal opportunities, says Luxembourg, Sweden and Estonia are the best places to work, with Italy, Greece and Romania coming in last.

The figures were compiled in a bid to shift the policy emphasis from mere job creation to focus on quality of employment in terms of fair pay, social protection, economic mobility, and workers’ rights. The 2012 data reveals that most countries have experienced a decline in job quality since the onset of the recession.

“The issue of creating quality jobs is complex and the question of whether conditions for just jobs are improving or getting worse must be addressed urgently,” it says.

Ireland moved up to 12^th place in 2012 from 14^th the year before. Eleventh is the highest position achieved by Ireland since 2000; 14^th is the lowest.

The Just Jobs Index was developed by Just Jobs Network and the Norwegian Fafo Institute, with funding from the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament. Its report was published in the UK journal Progressive Economy.

Dublin city manager Owen Keegan has rejected a motion passed by Dublin City councillors to suspend a planned review into ambulance services provided by Dublin Fire Brigade. The motion, which was put forward by the Labour group earlier this week, calls for the review to be suspended until a national HSE review is completed.

Dublin’s emergency ambulance service is operated by the fire brigade, under Dublin City Council, while ambulances are operated by the national ambulance service under the HSE. Dublin Fire Brigade responds to 40% of emergency ambulance calls nationally. The HSE pays the council around €9 million a year to provide the service, from a national budget of €134 million.

Labour councillor Brian McDowell accused Mr Keegan of seeking to undermine the work of Dublin Fire Brigade, which he described as “first class.” He said that the city manager was looking to “bring private operators into the service.”

Mr Keegan announced the review of the Dublin service just two days after the HSE announced its national review. Two external consultants have been appointed to conduct the review at a rate of €600 each per day.

IMPACT official Phil McFadden was part of a trade union delegation that attended the council meeting. He said the Dublin review made no sense in the context of the national review already underway. “This is essentially doubling up on the expense of reviewing the service, and the city manager is pursuing this despite a democratic decision by the council. It raises a lot of questions about the real objectives for this review.

“The Dublin ambulance service operates on less than 10% of the national service budget, yet responds to 40% of ambulance calls nationally. That demonstrates outstanding efficiency for a service delivered by dedicated men and women who do an excellent job. The city cannot afford to have that excellence undermined,” he said.

Greater income inequality, higher levels of insecure work, and the emergence of a two-tier workforce pose serious problems for women workers, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions 2014 women’s conference was told yesterday.

Addressing 200 delegates representing women workers north and south, Congress assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan said the economic crisis had brought more badly-paid, insecure work. “The only way to combat this is to make decent work – good pay and good jobs – a key ambition for post-troika Ireland,” she said.

She said women – especially younger women, migrant workers, women with lower skills and women with children – were most severely hit by insecure and low paid work.

IMPACT member Marion Jackson, who’s a school secretary in a primary school in Sallins, county Kildare, told the conference about the continuing disparity in employment terms for school secretaries. “There are two groups of school secretaries – those paid directly by the Department of Education and those who are paid out of the so-called ancillary grant. In effect these secretaries, like me, have been contracted out.

“The secretaries paid by the education department are public servants and have standardised terms and conditions. The grant-paid secretaries are individually employed by the school boards of management who can pay any amount they wish” she said.

Please sir

Marion told delegates that many school secretaries have no contracts and that many have their employment terminated at the end of the school term and are forced to sign on the dole during the summer months. “In some schools, there are two school secretaries doing exactly the same job with one being paid by the department and the other having to go cap-in-hand to her board looking for a rise. Please sir, can I have some more?”

Marion added that the Government had briefly recognised secretaries like herself as public servants. “Ironically we were, for a brief period, recognised by the Government as public servants when they included us under the law used to impose pay cuts on public servants.”

She said that her experience was not unique as thousands of other women experience what is now called precarious work. “Unfortunately this is a trend which has gotten worse since the onset of the economic crisis. Like school secretaries, many women are on short fixed-term contracts or, worse, have no contracts at all and no access to basic conditions like pensions, sick leave and promotional opportunities.

“The erosion of decent working standards has led to a worsening of inequality and has left those experiencing it just about surviving on a week-to-week basis. This is no way to live happy and fulfilled lives. It breeds worry, insecurity and anxiety and has a huge impact on family life too."

She said the alternative to precarious work must also include decent pay. “For the last five or six years we've all had to take a big hit to our incomes. Now that growth is coming back to the economy it's time that workers got a fair return so that they can begin to live again and dare to hope for the future.”

IMPACT is among the financial supporters of the Lajee cultural tour, which brings young Palestinian Dabka dancers from the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem to perform in Ireland. The tour comes to Dublin’s Liberty Hall on Sunday 13^th April, where the dancers will perform in a programme featuring Donal Lunny, Paddy Glackin, Frances Black and other Irish musicians.

The tour has been supported to allow these young people to showcase their culture and raise awareness of life in a Palestinian refugee camp. There are also plans to perform in Cork, Limerick and Galway.

The 13^th April Dublin event also features photography, film and Palestinian food from 6pm, with music and dance getting underway at 8pm.

Get tickets (€15, 10 concessions) and more information from www.lajeetourireland.wordpress.com or 087-962-3624.

IMPACT has called for a total rethink of health minister James Reilly’s plans for universal health insurance (UHI). The union says the funding model outlined in a draft white paper, which was discussed at the cabinet health sub-committee last week, would “place a universal financial burden on families with no guarantee of universal access to healthcare.”

IMPACT national secretary Louise O’Donnell said that, while the final price of UHI had not yet been disclosed, it was expected that it would be in the region of €1,600 for an individual. “The experience in Holland, which has a similar funding model to that proposed by the Government, has been a continuing rise in the price of compulsory insurance, coupled with increasing restrictions on the health services covered,” she said.

Ms O’Donnell said the UHI model chosen by the minister carries inherent financial uncertainties that could also put critical services at risk. “The minister has based his approach to UHI on policy in The Netherlands, where a system of competing private insurers has created an inequitable and inefficient system of funding, different tiers of entitlement, rising hospital deficits, and even bankrupt hospitals,” she said.

Financial incentives to discharge patients early have also left Holland with one of the highest hospital readmission rates in Europe because more people experience post-discharge complications.

IMPACT has urged the Government to evaluate an alternative ‘single-payer’ social insurance model like those used in France, Germany and Nordic countries. “The ‘competing insurers’ model should not be adopted before all the options have been evaluated in terms of quality, equity, access to services, and medium and long term value-for-money,” according to the union’s report The Future of Healthcare in Ireland. The report was authored by independent healthcare expert Dr Jane Pillinger and published in 2012, but received no response from the minister.

The union is calling for a full examination of a range of UHI funding models, not just the single ‘competing private insurers’ model outlined in the draft white paper.

Four representatives from each of IMPACT’s local government branches are to be invited to a seminar on the future of local government, which is being organised by the union in advance of the local elections.

Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government Phil Hogan is to open the event, which takes place in Dublin on 28^th April. The seminar will examine changes in local authority structures and responsibilities and explore the challenges for local government in the decades ahead. 

The event takes place after a significant year, which saw the publication of the Local Government Bill. The legislation heralds the abolition of town councils, mergers of other authorities, and a massive cull in the numbers of elected councilors. Local authority functions have also been diminished through the creation of Irish Water, the removal of driving licence renewals, and the privatisation of Dublin’s waste services.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan has written to branches in the union’s Local Government and Municipal Employees’ divisions setting out details of the seminar. We’ll be reporting more in due course.

A panel of four experts has been given until the end of March to report on ways to breach the impasse over the Irish Airline Superannuation Scheme (IASS), which covers workers in Aer Lingus and the Dublin and Shannon airport authorities. IMPACT has agreed to engage constructively with the group.

The panel includes two union nominees, former IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone and Eugene McMahon of business consultants Mazars. There are also two nominees from employers’ group IBEC.

The panel will try to resolve disagreements between management and unions over how to bridge an €800 million funding deficit. It will review the financial assumptions and projections used as the basis of a 2013 Labour Court recommendation, as well as recent proposals from IASS trustees.

The move came as IMPACT's IAESA branch, which represents management and administrative staff in Aer Lingus and the airport authorities, voted to take industrial action. However, the union will not serve notice of industrial action while the expert review is underway. The union’s cabin crew branch last week decided not to ballot at this time because its members face more immediate issues, which may require a ballot for industrial action. Pilots are not involved because they have a separate pension scheme.

A statement from ICTU, IBEC and the two government departments involved said the experts would carry out “a detailed investigation, to include discussions with relevant stakeholders including management and the relevant trade unions and consultations with the LRC and the Labour Court.” The panel’s terms of reference are:

• To identify the areas of agreement and disagreement between the parties in the context of the terms of Labour Court recommendation (CCC-125984-12) in the case of the DAA and (CCC-094293-10) in the case of Aer Lingus)
• To take account of the terms and impact of the IASS trustee proposal on those Labour Court recommendations; and
• To identify how those industrial relations issues can be resolved.

Meanwhile, IMPACT wrote to members in its three aviation branches to refute reports that the union had agreed to Aer Lingus plans to withhold a gainshare payment to staff. “There is no basis for this assertion and this fact is now acknowledged by the company,” it said.

IMPACT says the withholding of the gainshare payment would be an unacceptable breach of agreements. The union’s official Johnny Fox compared the proposal to the company’s recent decision to give more than €600,000 to its two most senior executives through a share deal.

New legislation to protect workplace whistleblowers – people who reveal fraudulent or other unlawful behaviour – has been strengthened with measures to prevent employers sacking staff who blow the whistle.

The Government’s decision to amend its own Protected Disclosures Bill with the new clause is a major boost to the trade union campaign for stronger whistleblower protections. The clause was a central plank of trade union submissions on the Bill, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has described the move as a “game changer.”

It means that, once the Bill becomes law, employers will be barred from dismissing an employee who blows the whistle in accordance with the law. Their union will be able to apply to the Circuit Court for an ‘interim relief order’ preventing dismissal. The court will be able to order the immediate reinstatement of the employee in their own job or a similar post with the same pay and conditions pending the final determination of an unfair dismissal case.

If the employer still refuses, the court will be able to order that the whistleblower is paid exactly as if they were at work pending the outcome of the case. ICTU legal and social affairs officer Esther Lynch said experience in other countries is that these kinds of provisions rarely need to be used because their existence causes employers to modify their behaviour.

IMPACT has been at the forefront of the ICTU campaign and its national secretary Matt Staunton is part of the union team working to strengthen the legislation. ICTU is now pressing for a code of practice to set out clear procedures for making protected disclosures.

IMPACT has told civil service management it will not countenance a Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) proposal that civil servants should pay €437 if they appeal their PMDS performance management outcome. DEPR says the charge would be refundable if the appeal was upheld.

The union has dismissed the proposal out of hand, saying it will not even enter arbitration until it is dropped from the management agenda. IMPACT national secretary Eamonn Donnelly said staff had a fundamental right to appeal management decisions. “We won’t accept that the opportunity to appeal PMDS decisions should be confined to those who can afford to pay. If we concede this principle on PMDS there is no telling where it will lead,” he said. 

Donnelly said the union was prepared to go to arbitration on other management proposals that have emerged in discussions on reform of the PMDS system – including a proposal that appeals would be restricted to staff who are rated in the lowest two categories. These - categories one and two - are the ratings that incur penalties on increments and eligibility for promotion.

Management claims €437 is the cost of processing a PMDS appeal.

An IMPACT-supported production was honoured at the Irish Times theatre awards last month. Anu Productions received the prestigious Judges Special Award for commemorating the 1913 Dublin Lockout by “using the city of Dublin as their set, and their reconfiguration of the audience as citizens.”

The award marks the conclusion of an enormous 1913 centenary workload by the company, who staged the wildly successful IMPACT-sponsored “Dublin Tenement Experience: Living The Lockout” at No.14 Henrietta Street last year.

Anu created a journey back in time in a house which had lain virtually unchanged since 1913, giving an authentic glimpse into a tenement home. The event was a collaborative partnership between Dublin City Council, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Irish Heritage Trust. Running over six weeks, with seven performances every day, the show quickly sold out, leading to early morning queues for any available cancellations.

The company also staged “Thirteen”, a series of performances staged over thirteen days of the 2013 Dublin Theatre festival. The series of interconnected works combined performance, installation and digital technology. Audiences were invited to immerse themselves in the tumultuous events of 1913 as they unfolded in present day Dublin.