HSE management’s failure to deal with excessive sleepover demands on staff in residential child care and disability facilities has been referred to the Labour Court.  IMPACT and Siptu say the HSE and various employers are in breach of Irish and EU working time legislation, and that many staff are expected to work 55-70 hours a week.

The unions raised the issue in the media last month after the latest round of Labour Relations Commission talks failed to reach agreement.

HSE management has admitted that residential child care and disability agencies are routinely breaching working time legislation by requiring staff to work an excessive number of sleepovers on top of their standard 39-hour working week.  Staff are systematically required to work seven-hour sleepover shifts for just €6.40 an hour, well below the statutory minimum wage of €8.65.

The HSE and management in the agencies have failed to reach a resolution on the issue during six months of talks, despite being required to do so under the Haddington Road agreement.

IMPACT national secretary Louise O’Donnell said the HSE and its agencies were claiming that the sleepover issue could not be resolved because of cost and resource constraints. “There appears to be no effective limit on pay costs for chief executives. Meanwhile managers order staff to work as many as seven sleepovers a fortnight, in flagrant breach of Irish and EU working time laws, for the princely sum of €3 an hour after tax,” she said.

IMPACT has withdrawn notice of industrial action at the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) after management agreed that a dispute of air traffic control trainees’ terms and conditions could be referred to the Labour Relations Commission (LRC). Among other things, the LRC will deal with a dispute over trainees’ pay and IAA proposals to recoup thousands of euro in training costs from them after they have qualified.

The IAA has traditionally met the full cost of controllers’ training and has paid trainees around €16,000 a year. It recently said it would stop paying the trainees, and that it would recoup training costs of around €225,000 by reductions in salary for years after graduation.

The authority also agreed to halt proceedings in its bid to get a court intervention to prevent industrial action.

Department of Agriculture technical staff are to take industrial action from 20^th January. Although the initial action aims to cause administrative inconvenience to management without impacting on farmers or the food industry, the union says stronger action will follow if the issues are not resolved.

Over 600 agricultural officers involved are responsible for inspections of farms, meat factories and other facilities to ensure food safety and compliance with EU and Irish regulations on the production, labelling, sale and export certification of agricultural produce including live animals.

The dispute was triggered by the agriculture department’s decision to refuse IMPACT members the chance to compete for assistant principal posts, in defiance of a new civil service-wide policy that allows all qualified staff to apply for vacancies that have been approved for filling. The union says this was the latest in a series of management decisions that are putting agricultural officers’ job security at risk, while eroding their terms and conditions beyond the measures already conceded under the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements.

IMPACT national secretary Eamonn Donnelly said the issues could be addressed in ways that save taxpayers millions of euro, while maintaining excellent services to the farming community and agriculture sector.

“The agriculture department has effectively collapsed the industrial relations process at a time when agricultural officer duties are diminishing because of rationalisation and reforms. Meanwhile, management persists in transferring their duties to higher paid civil servants and unnecessarily allocating inspection work to expensive external contractors. Both of these practices incur huge costs to taxpayers while putting our members’ jobs at risk,” he said.

IMPACT and other unions have received strong written assurances from Irish Water on concerns they raised about the forthcoming transfer of local authority water assets to the new state company.

In two detailed letters received in mid-December, Irish Water clarified that service level agreements (SLAs) with local authorities will specify what staffing resources are required. IMPACT had earlier raised concerns over this issue in a meeting of the Irish Water Consultative Group.

Irish Water has confirmed that SLAs must specify the staff headcount required on commencement of the agreement. Thereafter, annual service plans (ASPs) linked to the SLA will set out exactly how many staff will be needed. This will then be subject to review each year as the ASP is reviewed – arguably a stronger safeguard than originally envisaged.

Irish Water has also said that terminations of SLAs are not envisaged, and its letters set out the very limited  circumstances in which suspensions might occur at the end of a specific process to address service failures. Performance issues will be addressed at monthly reviews between Irish Water and the local authority, which is another safeguard because problems will be addressed well in advance of a situation that might lead to the suspension of an SLA.  

The letter also sets out the extremely limited emergency circumstances in which outsourcing might occur and makes plain that, should it arise, any outsourcing would be for a fixed temporary period before operations returned to the local authority.

Irish Water has also said that a Government amendment will ensure that the legislation concerning the transfer from local authorities will underpin the union-negotiated agreement that local authorities will operate water services on behalf of Irish Water for at least 12 years. Various other union concerns about the legislation, including staff pension issues, will also be addressed through amendments.

Separately, IMPACT national secretary Eamonn Donnelly says he has received satisfactory assurances that none of the union’s members will be ‘conscripted’ into the new water company against their will. Together with the two letters from Irish Water, Eamonn said the firm assurances were enough to allay union fears about staffing issues.

A longer report on these developments appeared on the IMPACT website on 19^th December 2013.

ICTU and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) have criticised a compromise EU agreement on rights for employees who work abroad. The revised rules governing ‘posted workers’ were agreed by the EU Council of Ministers, which represents the governments of EU member states, last month. It must now be agreed in negotiations between the Council, European Parliament and European Commission.

The issue of posted workers – those who are employed in one country but work temporarily in another – has been vexed since the 1996 EU Posted Workers’ Directive was passed. In principle, the directive gives posted workers the same minimum pay and conditions as others in the country where they work. But it can quite easily be side-stepped by unscrupulous employers.

Some workers have been employed as posted workers on a virtually permanent basis while their employers have no real link with the country they claim to be based in. Bad employers can also define minimum terms and conditions in ways that leave posted workers far worse off than their local counterparts.

Also, a number of employers have gone out of business, leaving their staff with no pay or redress. Unions wanted the revised rules to ensure that workers in this position could claim against the main contractor, not just the subcontractor they are employed by. But this right has been restricted to the construction industry.

Unions also wanted national governments to have the right to impose local controls on firms using posted workers. But this measure has been tightly restricted in the new proposals.

The ETUC also says the outcome has failed to meet the key principle of legal clarity over posted workers’ rights. Its general secretary Bernadette Ségol said the compromise text did not meet union expectations. "In the coming negotiations, the ETUC will look to the European Parliament to clear ambiguities and ensure that mechanisms are put in place so that all EU workers enjoy fair and equal working conditions," she said.

ICTU, which actively lobbied the Irish Government and MEPs in the run-up to the compromise deal, said it would not support any limitation to member states’ rights to impose controls on employers. Its legal and social affairs officer Esther Lynch said the directive must secure equal treatment with workers in the host country.

“The posting of workers must not be allowed to become a business model for companies to circumvent labour law and social security obligations, as is increasingly becoming the case in Ireland,” she said.

The outcome is not all bad news, however. Proposed changes would mean that the National Employment Rights Authority would be given comprehensive details of posting arrangements when workers are posted to Ireland. ICTU says this and other provisions – including a requirement on employers to name a designated contacted person and maintain records for inspection – have been long sought by unions as they are key to effective inspection and enforcement of posted workers’ rights.

“These measures would help ensure that the most vulnerable workers are not exploited and help prevent employers from undercutting nationally-determined terms of employment,” according to Esther Lynch.

Representatives of European trade unions will attend a hearing in the European Parliament next month in the next stage of the campaign to enshrine access to water and sanitation services as a human right. Later this month, the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), which led the campaign, will hand over more than 1.7 million signatures in support of the policy from citizens in 25 EU member states.

The campaign is the first successful use of the ‘European Citizens Initiative,’ introduced under the Nice Treaty. The initiative obliges the European Commission to consider demands that attract over a million signatures from a range of EU member states.

EPSU will outline practical steps, including preventing the privatisation of water and sanitation services, when it meets European parliamentarians in February. It hopes to get a response from the Commission in March – perhaps in advance of ‘world water day’ on 22^nd March.

IMPACT is one of 265 unions, representing over eight million public servants, affiliated to EPSU.

As predicted by IMPACT, a new HSE voluntary redundancy facility will not be open to all staff and will only apply to “targeted employees in certain grades, services or locations determined by the employer and approved by the HSE.” The HSE issued a circular to senior management on the facility last month.

Meanwhile, IMPACT has asked HSE management to look again at the low release rate for staff who have applied for incentivised career breaks. However, it is not expected that there will be much of an increase in the numbers released.

At its December meeting, IMPACT’s Health and Welfare executive discussed both schemes, neither of which were negotiated with the union. The executive believes current staffing levels in IMPACT grades should not be reduced any further because of huge existing shortfalls. Therefore, the union won’t be actively pursuing implementation of either the redundancy or the incentivised career break circulars.

The so-called ‘pension levy’ has been slightly reduced for all public servants with effect from 1^st January 2014. The change – worth €125 a year – was implemented by exempting more earnings from the levy.

IMPACT and other unions successfully sought this adjustment in talks on the Haddington Road agreement last year. Although it’s a very modest improvement, it’s significant because it represents the first positive movement in public service incomes since 2008.

Public servants’ pay was effectively cut by an average 7% when the levy was introduced in 2009. 2010 bought further pay cuts. Public servants who earn over €65,000 – about 13% of all public sector employees – saw a further cut under Haddington Road, although this will be restored over time for most of them.

An additional cut of 10% for new entrants from 2011 was also addressed under Haddington Road and last October unions achieved the end of the two-tier pay system that it had introduced.

The reduction in the so-called ‘pension levy’ will be done by halving the rate of 5% on earnings between €15,000 and €20,000.

New certified sick leave arrangements are now expected to come into force for most public servants in March 2014, after the Labour Court issued its recommendation on outstanding issues last December. The new arrangements will apply in schools and colleges from the start of the 2014-2015 school year.

The Labour Court recommendation dealt with the criteria for determining when an illness is critical in cases of pregnancy-related illness, disability and mental health.

The Court backed union arguments that staff with pregnancy-related illnesses should not be dependent on management discretion to define the illness as critical. It said pregnancy-related illnesses that require two or more days of in-patient care in a hospital or clinic should automatically be defined as critical. This also applies to assisted pregnancy-related conditions.

The Court agreed with the assessment of the civil service chief medical officer, who said that not all disability-related conditions were critical. But it said the draft critical illness protocol, which has been drawn up in talks between unions and management, should explicitly confirm that extended paid leave is available in cases of serious disability-related illnesses - even if they don’t meet strict medical criteria set out in the protocol. It also said management must take reasonable steps to help staff with disability-related illnesses to return to work.

Finally, the recommendation rejected arguments that all mental illnesses should be defined as critical. The Court said staff with critical mental illnesses would “automatically” have access to extended sick leave, and that there was management discretion to extend this to cases that did not meet the specific criteria. It therefore recommended no change to the draft critical illness protocol on this issue.

Paid leave

The distinction between critical and non-critical conditions is important because, in future, paid leave for non-critical illnesses will be halved to three months on full pay, followed by three months on half pay in any four-year period. IMPACT and other unions have ensured that current arrangements – six months on full pay, followed by six months on half pay – will remain in cases of critical illness.

The draft protocol on critical illness will now be amended to take account of the Labour Court recommendation. Details of other aspects of the critical illness protocol, which has been the subject of negotiations between management and unions for some months, were reported in previous IMPACT bulletins.

The changes to certified sickness arrangements come on foot of a 2012 Labour Court recommendation, where IMPACT and other unions successfully argued against management proposals to cut paid certified leave in all cases, including cases of critical illness. The union also successfully resisted management plans to limit the arrangement to a single critical illness or serious injury in a public servant’s career, and ensured that existing schemes for occupational illnesses or injuries will remain unchanged.

IMPACT has also confirmed that, although sick leave taken over the last four years will be taken into account when calculating eligibility for paid leave, a one-year ‘look back’ mechanism, which is advantageous to staff, will remain in place.

Significant changes to uncertified sick leave have already been introduced under the Croke Park agreement.

The number of clerical, administrative and management staff employed by the HSE and major hospitals has fallen by over 13% since 2009, according to official figures. This is the biggest drop of any staff group except ‘general support staff’.

IMPACT says the figures, which show changes in health service staffing by category, scotch the myth that the health service employs too many administrators. The figures also show that almost 70% of the HSE’s ‘management and admin’ staff category are in the lowest two pay grades. Almost 40% of admin staff are employed at the lowest grade.

Admin and management staff now make up just over 15% of total HSE staffing. Most of them perform front-line roles or provide direct support to front-line staff, while others deliver vital services like payroll, IT, HR, finance, procurement and information.

Late last year, IMPACT national secretary Louise O’Donnell wrote to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform asking him to back up his claim that the HSE has identified “at least” 1,500 surplus administrators on its payroll. No confirmation of that figure was received.

Ms O’Donnell pointed out that most HSE areas have identified shortfalls in admin staff and said less than 10% of staff who applied were allowed to take unpaid career breaks in 2013. “Clerical and admin staffing has been cut to the bone in most areas and it is incredibly demotivating when politicians take cheap shots at staff who are doing their best to maintain services in this environment,” she said.

The HSE figures show that overall health service staffing fell by almost 10% - from 111,770 to 100,894 – between March 2009 and July 2013. The number of clerical officers fell by over 22%. The next largest declines in the management and admin stream were at director level (19%) and senior management (16%). The smallest staffing decline in the management-admin stream has been among middle management grades (5%).

IMPACT and other education unions have expressed concern that proposals to devolve more spending and staffing powers to schools could increase bureaucracy and reduce transparency in the education system.

Public expenditure and reform minister Brendan Howlin floated the proposals earlier this month, saying he wanted to test a new funding model based on block grants to allow schools determine how funds were spent at local level. In a recent media interview he said the scheme would allow individual schools to “determine how many frontline teachers they want, how many SNAs, how many resource teachers or what skills mix.”

IMPACT fears the proposals could lead to the further marginalisation of pupils who need resource, language or special needs support because there would be pressure to emphasise mainstream teaching in spending decisions. The union also says they could damage jobs and employment opportunities for school secretaries, special needs assistants and caretakers.

IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan said parents had fought for decades for the opportunity for all children to access mainstream education. “For many children, mainstream education is only possible if learning and care supports are in place. These are currently allocated following an assessment of the needs of the child. At the vey least, it seems illogical to change school funding models before the full implementation of the ESPEN Act, which would protect the rights of the most vulnerable children,” he said.

Kevin added that the proposals would put well-established national education guidelines in jeopardy. “The minister’s proposals would allow school boards of management to play fast and loose with established standards in the education sector. We have seen this happen before. When given the opportunity to determine school secretaries’ pay, a small number of schools opted to pay less than the minimum wage while many more pay well below the rate for school secretaries directly employed by the education department. There’s a real concern that school secretaries and caretakers could be further exploited,” he said.

“Similarly, if there’s a trade-off between mainstream and special education provision, we could see vulnerable children squeezed out of new school structures and SNAs forced out of work. For all these reasons, it is safer to assume that this is driven by a desire to cut expenditure rather than to protect the interests of children.”

IMPACT is to consult with the education department and will seek to work with other education unions on the issue.

IMPACT's Boards and Voluntary Agencies branch has launched a campaign to highlight the invaluable work done by IMPACT members in the youth services sector. This short film features the staff and children at the Balgaddy after school club, which provides a comfortable atmosphere for informal education and recreation and a place to mingle with friends in a safe and fun environment.

Local IMPACT rep John O'Hara, who works with the group, says building relationships is key to the work but often takes time and patience. “It's worth it when you see kids developing and growing confident in their own right,” he says. The film also features Jamie Murphy and Sally Flynn from Ballyfermot youth service, who are now doing youth and community studies at third level.

As cutbacks deepen, IMPACT members working in this sector continue to provide vital services to young people under growing pressure.  IMPACT organiser Siobhan Curran says the new campaign aims to reach out to youth workers to highlight their work and encourage them to join the union.

“This sector has suffered extensive budget cuts, job losses and pay cuts. Along with most workers in the community and voluntary sector, they don’t have the protection of an agreement like Haddington Road. This campaign encourages communities to recognise the value of their work and encourages workers in the sector to organise and help protect their future.”