Feature Article
Could a robot do your job?
by Lughan Deane and Niall Shanahan
 

Workers need help to survive automation.

Ireland’s education system needs to adapt to the challenge arising from rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), which could threaten tens of thousands of traditional jobs.


We need to talk about robots


Ireland’s education system needs to adapt to the challenge arising from rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), which could threaten tens of thousands of traditional jobs.

Recent and imminent advances in machine learning, which threaten to unleash change on the scale of the splitting of the atom, will shape the future of work – and the distribution of wealth in Ireland and across the globe.

This is not science fiction. Automation is already making its mark, including in proposals to phase in so-called staffless library services.

Speaking at IMPACT’s recent education division conference, deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan, said our education system must be ready to help workers recalibrate and adapt as demand for new and different skills grows.

“Major advances in artificial intelligence, many of which will be developed in our Institutes of technology, already point to a paradigm shift in the world of work,” he said.

But AI doesn’t yet have the human touch, which means visions of a work-free economy are wide of the mark. As Kevin said at the recent conference: “Basic human interaction will never be obsolete. You simply can’t code for the human situations that SNAs, counsellors, school completion staff and others encounter each day.

“There’s no algorithm for human empathy. Students don’t speak in ones and zeroes.  No piece of software will nurture Ireland’s next generation.”

IMPACT has also identified the distribution of wealth created by new technologies as a basic challenge. The technology-driven decline of the American rustbelt played a major role in the election of Donald Trump, just as the slump in England’s industrial heartlands fueled support for Brexit.

Creative solutions are required to ensure that today’s technological advances don’t simply result in unemployment, poverty and social decay, which inevitably bolsters support for destructive populist politics.

There has been much discussion, for example, about the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). The jury is still out on whether such a measure would be of benefit to workers or not.

Read our full blog here.

additional articles
IMPACT in solidarity with homeless

Unions marked May Day by demanding increased investment in publicly-owned social housing and an end to homelessness. The picture shows staff and members of IMPACT trade union preparing for a march of solidarity with homeless families, which took place Dublin yesterday (Monday).

The event was organised by Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) and the National Homeless and Housing Coalition. DCTU president Pat Bolger, a former IMPACT activist and official, said the fight for decent housing was paramount. “Housing is a right not a privilege and public land should be used to build public housing and not for private profit,” he said.

IMPACT lead organiser Joe O’Connor said the union’s local authority members in homeless services were working with people in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

“It is a complex issue but radical solutions need to considered and implemented as a matter of urgency. This includes a cost rental public housing model as advocated by NESC and NERI, the immediate introduction of a robust and proportionate vacant land levy, and a permanent model of rent regulation linked to inflation. Continued reliance on a chaotic and turbulent private sector will continue to fall short in meeting the scale of the challenge we face,” he said.

May Day has been an internationally-recognised celebration of the advances won by organised labour since the late nineteenth century.

St Patricks’ staff back action

IMPACT members working in St Patrick's mental health services in Dublin have backed industrial action in a dispute over management’s unilateral decision to stop paying pension scheme contributions.

There are 14 IMPACT members working at the hospital where other unions have also backed industrial action. IMPACT official Catherine Keogh said management had invited the group of unions into talks on the matter. A meeting is scheduled to take place this Friday (5th May).

Staff were told In March that the employer would be ceasing contributions and would transfer its funds to a defined contribution scheme. No consultation or discussion had taken place before the move was announced.

Crash transcript release criticised
by Niall Shanahan

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) has strongly criticised the publication of a transcript from the cockpit voice recorder from Irish coastguard helicopter Rescue 116. IMPACT’s airline pilots’ branch, IALPA, is an affiliate of IFALPA.

All four Rescue 116 crew members were killed when the aircracft crashed into Blackrock Island on 14th March. They were all IMPACT members.

A preliminary report into the fatal crash by the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) found that the island was not included in the aircraft's on board obstacle warning system. The report included the transcript of the last two minutes of the Rescue 116 cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which was later published widely in print, broadcast and online media.

IFALPA and the European Cockpit Association (ECA) strongly condemned the publication, describing it as “unwarranted, unacceptable, counterproductive to flight safety,” as well as being in breach of internationally agreed regulations.  IALPA president Evan Cullen said there was no justification for, or benefit from, publishing “specifically the last two minutes of this flight, other than feeding a thirst for sensationalism.”

The IFALPA statement said: “In this early stage of the technical investigation, many critical questions remain to be answered. IFALPA and ECA call for adherence to the proper accident investigation process and expect a comprehensive and accurate analysis of events based on the highest professional standards.”

The search is continuing for the bodies of winchmen Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby, both of whom were members of IMPACT’s IAESA branch. Captain Dara Fitzpatrick and Captain Mark Duffy were members of IALPA.

The current edition of IMPACT’s Work & Lifemagazine pays tribute to the crew.

Are you practising social care work?
by Lughan Deane

Are you a project worker, access worker, outreach worker, childcare worker, community worker, or similar, who is practicing social care work in your current role?

If so, you could be considered a ‘social care worker’ for the purposes of professional registration, even if your job title is something else. But if you’re somehow engaged in the practise of the profession of social care worker, you may soon be subject to CORU registration and regulation regardless of your job title.

That’s why IMPACT is asking members effectively engaged in the social care profession to let us know, so that we can ensure you benefit from all the supports available to IMPACT members – including advice and representation in ‘fitness to practise’ cases.

We can also tie you in with your IMPACT social care worker professional group.

Workers across a wide variety of sectors (like homelessness, disability, older persons and addiction service) are engaged in social care work, even though ‘social care worker’ may not appear in their job titles. For instance, a project worker in homeless services could well be engaged in social care work and would need to register as a social care professional.

It is important that you identify yourself to IMPACT so that we can include you and your views in the work that we do on the issues that matter to you in your profession.

Email us at kjackson@impact.ie stating that you are engaged in social care work and what your job title is in your service.

Overtime change sought
by Niall Shanahan

The civil service staff panel is seeking changes to the method of calculating overtime so that payments are based on net working hours. IMPACT national secretary Andy Pike said he wanted overtime calculated on the basis of hours worked, as it is in the wider public service. “Civil service overtime is currently based on gross hours, which means the calculation includes rest breaks,” he said.

This means that civil service overtime is calculated on the basis of 1/43rd of weekly pay, rather than the 1/37th rate used elsewhere.

Andy added: “The IMPACT claim, now adopted by the civil service staff panel, seeks to resolve this anomaly and bring civil service overtime payments in-line with the methodology used within the rest of the public service.”

Comment: Workers need right to disconnect
by Kevin Callinan
The idea of digital rights for a digital world is not a new one. Since 2014, for example, we have all had a ‘Right to be Forgotten’ from online search engines. Now, in a world where we are all on the grid all the time, IMPACT’s Kevin Callinan tells us why Ireland’s workers need a ‘Right to Disconnect’.

 

Bespoken as it is by ping pong tables, vintage arcade consoles and bean bags, the archetypal modern tech-office serves to blur the line between work and play.

The layout of our smartphone home screens renders this same dynamic, but in two dimensions.  My own phone serves as illustration; starting in the top-left corner and moving to the right along the top line of apps, I have Netflix (play), Twitter (work), Kindle (play), Mail (work) and Chrome (both).

Spatially, then, whether within the Silicon Valley office space or on the tiny glowing screens we all carry in our pockets, work/play boundaries are becoming harder and harder to see.

Though more difficult to detect, the same blurring is happening when it comes to our time. The internet allows for the elimination of space through time: we live in an age when ‘to commute’ from ‘home’ to ‘work’ can mean to move one’s right thumb an inch from the Netflix icon and onto the Mail one. This, of course, comes with advantages as well as disadvantages.

However, one result is an ‘always-on’ work culture in which employees are kept on a kind of electronic leash. The most perfect realization of this to date is the caffeine fueled ‘start-up’ culture in which interns regale each other with ‘two guys in a garage’ origin stories that fetishize obsession. This is a culture in which someone’s ambition is measured according to how early they set their alarm.

If Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s two Steves – Jobs and Wozniak – form a sort of holy trinity for the ‘start-up’ faithful, then the Government regulator is their antichrist. The muse, they will tell you, is not a clock-watcher. Inspiration comes when it will: ‘close of business’ means nothing to a true innovator. That’s all fine when you’re childless, cash-rich, time-rich and a twenty-something Ivy League dropout with virtually no responsibility to anyone but yourself.

‘Spontaneity’ and ‘Flexibility’ become bywords for the expectation that employees are available for undeclared work at all times. The tyranny of that expectation, though, and the hidden hours demanded by it, are incompatible with a good life. A workaholic can’t be a successful parent. Silicon Valley ‘creatives’ may scoff at trade unions or at government regulation; but it has always been the combination of precisely these two forces that has delivered the most progressive moves on working-time reform – including, of course, the weekend.

We must rescue the spirit of that progressive change from the relentless progression of work-creep. The ‘Right to Disconnect’ is the weekend for the twenty-first century. Fundamentally, it is about clarification and definition. Employers must clarify the expectations they hold in relation to employee work email. They must also define what constitutes reckonable work for the purposes of payment and overtime. These measures alone would go a long way towards redressing the work-life balance and reclaiming some leisure time from the quicksand that is modern work.  

The stakes are high. It may be easy to write this off as a Trade Union arguing that workers should clock out at five each day regardless of circumstance; but that’s not what this is. Primarily, this proposal is about human health and wellbeing. ‘Always-on’ work culture is linked to anxiety, burnout, clinical exhaustion and relationship problems. Secondarily it is about correcting for the unfair advantage accrued by those allowed by their circumstances to work on a 24/7 basis, over those who provide care to a dependent child or relative. As things stand this injustice runs along clear gender and age lines.

This is not an anti-business proposal. It should not be punitive. It should function as a ‘soft law’ that aims to nudge the narrative towards a focus on digital manners. At its core should be the notion that employees ought not to be expected to respond to work email outside of work hours. The precise mechanism that an employer adopts in fulfilment of this basic principle need not be circumscribed in law. Reforms need not be radical: simply disabling the ‘reply all’ function after a certain time each day would deliver significant gains with virtually no cost.

In fact, this is a pro-business idea. True innovation takes time. Time away produces fresh ideas. Distance from the task is critical to gaining a perspective on it. 

This article first appeared in Irish Tech News

Climate change just transition call
by Bernard Harbor

Trade unionists will discuss measures needed to project energy workers during a transition to a carbon-free Ireland at an event in Dublin on Wednesday 10th May.

‘Ensuring a just transition,’ which has been organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, will be opened by climate change minister Denis Naughten. It will feature speakers from ICTU, IBEC and Friends of the Earth.

Brian Koher of the international union federation IndustriALL Global Union will also address the meeting.

The event takes place at the CWU conference centre, North Circular Road, Dublin 1, from 9.30am. Contact Natalie Fox (Natalie.Fox@ictu.ie) to register.

One-in-ten on minimum wage
by Bernard Harbor

More than 10% of workers in Ireland are paid the national minimum wage of €9.25 an hour or less, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The study finds that women are more likely than men to be on low pay, and that the national minimum wage predominates in services like retail, accommodation and food.

Meanwhile, a recent union study revealed that some top private sector executives awarded themselves pay increases of up to 238%.

The CSO data shows that non-Irish nationals are more likely than Irish nationals to be stuck on minimum wage, as are young workers, part-timers, and those with lower levels of education. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for the implementation of a ‘living wage’ of €11.50 an hour. This is the pay rate deemed necessary to meet basic living needs.

NEWS
Education’s ‘real scandal’ revealed
by Bernard Harbor
 
Thousands of education staff, including clerical officers, special needs assistants, school secretaries, and early education professionals, start work on pre-tax salaries ranging between minimum wage and €440 a week, with many laid off without pay each summer. Speaking at the union’s education conference in Cork last month, IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said this was the “real scandal of low pay and two-tier reward systems in our education system.”

Thousands of education staff, including clerical officers, special needs assistants, school secretaries, and early education professionals, start work on pre-tax salaries ranging between minimum wage and €440 a week, with many laid off without pay each summer. Speaking at the union’s education conference in Cork last month, IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said this was the “real scandal of low pay and two-tier reward systems in our education system.”

The union, which represents almost 11,000 non-teaching education staff, said a two-tier pay system was introduced for school secretaries and caretakers as long ago as 1991, condemning hundreds to the statutory minimum wage, and sometime less, for their entire school careers. This is because their pay comes out of restricted local school budgets, instead of being paid directly by the education department.

Kevin was responding to Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton’s speech to the conference, and called this the “glaring inequality” in Ireland’s school system.

“IMPACT fully supports our teacher colleagues in their efforts to unwind pay inequities introduced during the crisis. We have full solidarity with those who complain of a two-tier pay system introduced in 2011. Our school secretaries have had a two-tier system for over 25 years – and we’re still fighting for pay justice,” he said.

Kevin said Ireland’s school secretaries and caretakers have zero job security, “Many will be laid off without pay for the summer, every summer. Special needs assistants often don’t know today if they’ll even have a job come September,” he said.

He called on Minister Bruton to implement the recommendations of a 2016 joint Oireachtas committee report on the role of special needs assistants, which said they should have higher entry qualifications and access to continuous professional development.

Kevin also demanded accelerated investment to address current deficits across the education service, and to prepare Ireland’s workforce for rapid automation over the coming years. “A new economy is rapidly developing, which threatens to displace tens of thousands of existing or traditional jobs. Our education system needs to be ready to help workers recalibrate and adapt as demand for new and different skills grows,” he said.

Substantial investment was also needed in pre-school education. “The importance of investment, for parents, children and staff, is nowhere more pressing than in the early education sector. If we are serious about equality we must recognise the professionalism of staff in these settings, and pay them appropriately. A genuinely world class education and training service will surely recognise that investment in the early years pays long term dividends for individuals and society,” he said.

More from IMPACT’s education conference

School secretaries’ pay withheld

Pay talks must address low incomes in education

Higher education funding

Savage cuts to counselling

Non-teaching staff excluded from school boards

Striking Derby teaching assistants inspire delegates

Pay talks to start this month
by Bernard Harbor
 
Talks on an extension to the Lansdowne Road agreement (LRA) are set to commence this month. They will get underway soon after public expenditure minister Paschal Donohoe presents a report from the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC) to the cabinet. This is expected to happen this week or next.

Talks on an extension to the Lansdowne Road agreement (LRA) are set to commence this month. They will get underway soon after public expenditure minister Paschal Donohoe presents a report from the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC) to the cabinet. This is expected to happen this week or next.

The talks will aim to set a timetable for the unwinding of emergency legislation that introduced pay cuts and the pension levy at the height of the economic crisis. The PSPC was been charged with addressing “how the unwinding of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Service (FEMPI) should proceed.”

The commission was asked to take account of public-private pay comparisons, international pay trends, security of tenure and the value of public service pensions. Recent statistics from the Central Statistics Office are useful on the first of these. Published in March, they showed that that public service workers now earn slightly less than their private sector counterparts when you take account of the so-called ‘pension levy,’ and factors such as occupation, education and length of service.

However, the value of public sector pensions and the contribution that public servants make towards their retirement income will be a major issue of contention in the talks. Unions and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform submitted different assessments of the cost of public service pensions to the PSPC. And the minister has indicated that he will seek increased contributions to the cost of pensions as FEMPI is unwound.

ICTU’s Public Services Committee (PSC), which coordinates the union voice in talks, has argued that public servants already pay PSRI and contribute 6.5% in superannuation contributions. The pension levy represents a further 10% or 10.5% contribution, depending on earnings over €28,750 a year. Unions also point out that staff who joined the public service since 2013 have significantly reduced pension provision.

Both sides are anxious to conclude the negotiation as quickly as possible so that any agreement can be balloted and, if accepted, reflected in next year’s budget calculations.

Parents lack childcare support
by Bernard Harbor
 
Inadequate Government plans to help parents with childcare costs will perpetuate underinvestment in early years’ care and education, while doing nothing to promote quality through the professionalisation of the sector, according to IMPACT.

Inadequate Government plans to help parents with childcare costs will perpetuate underinvestment in early years’ care and education, while doing nothing to promote quality through the professionalisation of the sector, according to IMPACT.

In a recent submission on legislative plans for childcare support, the union says the State’s ‘affordable childcare scheme’ needs to be redesigned to “move towards a graduate-led workforce and support professionalism through higher wages with agreed salary scales as a condition of public funding.”

The union favours a cap on fees to ensure that parents get the benefit of payments under the scheme, but says this could only be introduced in parallel with significantly increased Government investment. It says ramped-up funding is needed to give all children access to high-quality early education.

Ireland’s State spending on childcare is way below the OECD average of 0.8% of GDP. IMPACT wants the Government to commit to reaching this level within five years, and get to 1% of GDP within ten.

IMPACT says all providers, including childminders, should be obliged to register with the children’s agency Tusla before they receive funding through the scheme, which helps parents with childcare costs.

“The Ombudsman for Children should be able to investigate complaints by, and on behalf of, children within State-supported or funded early education,” it says.

Join our Facebook campaign at EarlyImpact and @early_impact on Twitter

Libraries and promotions on agenda
by Niall Shanahan
 
Staffless libraries and management plans to open local authority promotions to external competition will be high on the agenda at IMPACT’s Local Government division conference, which takes place in Letterkenny next week. The conference will also hear a report on the barriers to women’s career progression in local councils that fail to implement family-friendly policies.

Staffless libraries and management plans to open local authority promotions to external competition will be high on the agenda at IMPACT’s Local Government division conference, which takes place in Letterkenny next week. The conference will also hear a report on the barriers to women’s career progression in local councils that fail to implement family-friendly policies.

Delegates representing over 10,000 local authority staff will discuss a series of motions reflecting IMPACT’s opposition to proposals on staffless libraries.

The conference will also consider proposals by local authority management to further open local authority recruitment to staff in parts of the public service where council staff are blocked from seeking posts. IMPACT members have already voted overwhelmingly for industrial action over the proposed abolition of the ‘common recruitment pool,’ and national secretary Peter Nolan says he expects the mandate for industrial action to be activated at the conference.

Delegates will also debate motions on FEMPI legislation, the forthcoming pay talks, social housing and homelessness, job evaluation, family friendly policies and critical illness protocols.

The full conference agenda is available HERE.

Health service promotions details agreed
by Bernard Harbor
 
IMPACT has reached agreement on procedures for HSE promotion competitions and panels, which includes a provision for staff on temporary contacts, in a deal agreed at the Workplace Relations Commission. The outcome will see two panels made up of successful applicants, from which promotions to each of the four grades will be filled for a two-year period.

IMPACT has reached agreement on procedures for HSE promotion competitions and panels, which includes a provision for staff on temporary contacts, in a deal agreed at the Workplace Relations Commission. The outcome will see two panels made up of successful applicants, from which promotions to each of the four grades will be filled for a two-year period.

Two panels will be formed for promotions to grade IV posts. Twenty per cent of promotions to grade IV will be filled from a panel confined to clerical officers on fixed-term or specified purpose contracts at grade IV level.

The other 80% will be filled from a panel formed from a competition open to health service clerical officers. At least half the posts filled from the latter panel will be confined to applicants from within the HSE.

A similar arrangement will exist for each of the other three grades – V, VI and VII, with 20% of promotions filled by successful candidates currently on fixed-term or specified purpose contracts, and the remainder from successful applicants from the HSE, Tusla and section 38 bodies.

Staff already on fixed-term or specified purpose contracts will not have to undertake online verbal and numeracy tests.

Management entered the conciliation insisting that at least some posts would be filled from outside the health service, and this remains its longer-term position.

IMPACT national secretary Eamonn Donnelly said he was pleased with the outcome. “Given the absence of promotional opportunities in the health service since the imposition of the moratorium eight years ago, it is only right that existing qualified staff – including an appropriate proportion currently in temporary posts – have the chance to get promoted now that the economic situation has improved,” he said.

The arrangements are to be monitored on a six-monthly basis and a joint review will take place after 18 months.

Read the full details HERE.

Low pay and pensions in spotlight
by Bernard Harbor
 
Gina O’Brien, chairperson of the IMPACT education division
Gina O’Brien, chairperson of the IMPACT education division
The forthcoming public service pay talks must go beyond simply unwinding the ‘FEMPI’ legislation, to ensure that lower paid staff benefit, according to IMPACT. Speaking at the union’s education conference in Cork last month, deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said staff earning less than €28,750 a year would not benefit from further unwinding of FEMPI as the legislation now only affected incomes above that level.

The forthcoming public service pay talks must go beyond simply unwinding the ‘FEMPI’ legislation, to ensure that lower paid staff benefit, according to IMPACT. Speaking at the union’s education conference in Cork last month, deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said staff earning less than €28,750 a year would not benefit from further unwinding of FEMPI as the legislation now only affected incomes above that level.

“The limited progress we have already made has taken the lowest paid – those earning up to €28,750 a year – out of the scope of the pay cuts and pension levy. That includes thousands of clerical staff, special needs assistants, school secretaries, caretakers and others. In the absence of a broader pay round, unwinding FEMPI will be of no benefit to those on the very lowest incomes in this and other sectors,” he said.

Talks on a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement are expected to start in May after the Government receives the report of the Public Service Pay Commission.

Gina O’Brien, chairperson of the IMPACT education division, said unions would also seek to protect pensions in the forthcoming talks. She said: “We’ve all experienced the negative impact of the crisis on our livelihoods and working conditions. This month we have experienced some recovery in our pay, small but heading in a positive direction.

“We know that we still live in a fragile economy, and a balance must be struck between recognition for the sacrifices we’ve made, the need for investment in services, and the realities of what can realistically be recouped. The time has come for pay restoration and improvements for every worker across the economy.

“This will help sustain the economic recovery, and contribute to the growth in jobs now happening across all sectors. But a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement can’t be just about pay. When entering talks we will vehemently protect pensions, and maintain job security for public servants.”