Nearly half the people illegally trafficked into Ireland last year, mostly for sexual exploitation, were children according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland. Speaking on anti-trafficking day today (18^th October) the Council said 23 of the 48 people officially identified as victims of trafficking were children. Thirty-nine of the victims were sexually exploited.

The Immigrant Council is calling on the Government to act on growing evidence that sex-trafficking is going undetected. Its chief executive Denise Charlton said: “As shocking as the latest trafficking figures are, the Immigrant Council of Ireland fears that many more have not been found and may never be found.”

Last night, campaigners launched a successful social media 'Thunderclap' campaign, delivering the Turn Off the Red Light (TORL) anti-trafficking message to over 85,000 people with a call to action. Today, you can support the TORL campaign HERE.

The Immigrant Council wants the Government to:

• Improve the identification of victims by involving specialised NGOs
• Provide support to all victims on a statutory footing, regardless of their nationality or immigration status
• Provide specific accommodation for victims, rather than using direct provision asylum seekers’ centres
• Appoint an anti-trafficking Czar, and
• Implement the recommendations of the Oireachtas Justice Committee, which called for laws against sex buyers.

The Department of Finance has confirmed that changes to a tax measure called ‘top slicing relief’ will have no impact on retirement lump sums paid under Revenue-approved pension arrangements and statutory schemes. The clarification follows some confused media reporting of the budget.

Last year the finance minister abolished top slicing relief on ex-gratia termination lump sum payments of over €200,000 made in respect of retirements or terminations of employment. In this year’s budget he went further and abolished the relief altogether.

Top slicing relief is a mechanism to look back at previous year’s tax rates and average out the tax take when a ‘once off’ lump sum is paid in a particular year. There are no changes to the specific tax exemptions for ex-gratia or discretionary payments.

It should also be noted that statutory redundancy payments are exempt from income tax, while additional tax credits based on the number of years of service are also retained. Any balance of the ex-gratia payment after the calculation of the exemptions and reliefs will now be liable to income tax based on the year of payment.

Legislation aimed at reducing the number of local authorities from 114 to 31 was published by environment minister Phil Hogan yesterday (17^th October). The Local Government Bill 2013 is set to be enacted before next summer’s local elections.

IMPACT moved to ensure that the changes would be managed through the Croke Park process when the legislation was first mooted last year. That commitment remains as part of the Haddington Road agreement, which means there will be no compulsory redundancies and that staff will continue to get the protections in the agreement in redeployment or relocation situations.

The legislation will see the number of councillors reduced by 42 per cent (from 1,627 to 949) and the number of local authorities cut from 114 to just 31. All 80 existing town councils will be replaced by municipal districts made up of county councillors from the area. There will be 137 municipal districts with the membership and configuration determined at council level. The number of county councillors in more populated counties will be increased.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said the reforms must not reduce public participation in local decision making. “Local authorities should be the body of choice for delivery of public services to the community, and communities need to be part of the decision making process. These changes put that process further beyond the immediate reach of many citizens, and in that respect we all need to be cautious,” he said.

Peter said service delivery had suffered in the past when services were taken from local authorities and outsourced to private suppliers and other agencies. “Waste management is perhaps the clearest example of what can go wrong. Illegal dumping and increased charges to customers have been the single biggest outcome of the decision to sell off Dublin city’s waste collection. Whatever these changes bring to local government, we need to continue to ensure that services are protected. That’s in the interest of every citizen as well as IMPACT members,” he said.

The minister has said the changes will save taxpayers €420 million over four years while devolving power from central government to local and regional levels. He said 80% of revenue raised from the property tax will be ring-fenced for local authorities. From 2015 councillors will have the power to vary the revenue to suit local needs.

Irish Water service level agreements (SLAs), which will nail down staff protections, are to be negotiated in all local authorities.  At a recent meeting with IMPACT, the Irish Water Consultative Group (IWCG) restated its commitment that SLAs which will be “sufficiently durable” to cover the period to 2026.

There is also a provision to review the SLAs after two and seven years.

At the meeting, IMPACT official Eamonn Donnelly raised concerns over clauses in the overall framework for service level agreements, which aim to protect workers’ terms and conditions. He was assured it that it was not intended that any local authority worker would  be ‘conscripted’ into Irish Water.

Eamonn said it was now critical to ensure that SLAs were sufficiently durable, and that they would reflect sufficient resourcing to succeed over the 12-year period from 2014. He said IMPACT would circulate more information to branches following a briefing on a draft framework for individual SLAs, which is due to take place next week.

IMPACT has hosted a series of information meetings for members in local authority water services. A number of issues were raised by members, mostly arising from mixed messages from senior management in some local authorities. The union raised these issues at the IWCG.

Union meetings were held in Tullamore, Galway, Limerick, Kerry and Cork. More meetings will take place as new information becomes available.

IMPACT and other unions are pressing the Government over the treatment of workers who will be affected by the abolition of the transitional state pension, which goes to workers aged between 65 and 66 who retire and don’t take up another job.

The Department of Social Protection previously told ICTU that these workers will be able to sign on for jobseekers benefit. Following representations, unions now hope social welfare legislation will allow them to sign on just once to receive the benefit for the full year.

The changes generally have no implications for IMPACT members on ‘class D’ social insurance, or those who have a contractual option to continue in employment to age 66. Staff with access to employment-based supplementary schemes will face administrative rather than financial changes.

Unions are continuing to lobby over the loss facing other workers affected by planned changes to the qualifying age for state pensions and IMPACT will circulate further information once the Social Welfare Bill is published.

Aer Lingus cabin crew are currently balloting for industrial action. The ballot closes at noon on Wednesday 30^th October.

The decision to ballot came shortly after management at the airline announced it would outsource cabin crew services on a new, more frequent, transatlantic route from next January. But the ballot has been provoked by management’s attitude and behaviour on a number of issues, which have made the working lives of Aer Lingus cabin crew increasingly difficult in recent years.

Rosters

Cabin crew rosters have become increasingly difficult, with published rosters continually subject to radical changes leaving crew with little certainty over their working hours or home lives. While some flexibility over rosters is necessary in the industry, onerous shift patterns and changing rosters have become systematic. As a result, work patterns forced upon cabin crew have become unsustainable. This makes it impossible for crew to manage non-work responsibilities and can compromise their health and wellbeing. It has become clear to the union that management is unwilling to address or resolve cabin crew concerns on this issue through normal industrial relations channels.

Breach of agreements

Management is habitually breaching existing agreements reached following negotiation between management and staff representatives and ballots of cabin crew. One recent example was the use of Belfast crew on services out of Dublin, which is in breach of the Belfast Base agreement, which only stopped after IMPACT intervened. Agreements on additional meal services and hotels have also been breached.

Green book

Management interpretations of the ‘Green Book’, which governs all aspects of roster patterns, frequently go beyond anything agreed with IMPACT. The company has failed to respond to a detailed IMPACT proposal (last December) for an independent third party adjudication mechanism to deal with disputes over interpretation. This is despite repeated commitments to IMPACT and the Labour Relations Commission that it would do so.

Greenfield review

The Labour Relations Commission (LRC) brokered review of the Greenfield/dispute settlement has been ongoing since April 2012. However, management has cancelled and postponed a number of meetings and refuses to even table a position on many issues. The union has been forced to conclude that the company has no intention of making progress on this review despite commitments made at the LRC.

The company has also slowed all other industrial relations procedures to a halt. It has become clear that the normal system of processing industrial relations issues affecting cabin crew has been effectively abandoned by management.

Outsourcing

Management issued an ultimatum to the cabin crew branch that there would be just four cabin crew per flight on the new transatlantic service, despite the fact that industry standard on 757 aircraft is usually five or six. Management refused to discuss this with the union, and last week laid off 30 trainees who were recruited largely to operate the flights out of Shannon, demonstrating a willingness to toy with peoples livelihoods to make its point.

If unchecked, the move to outsource may lead management to believe it can outsource other cabin crew duties in the future. It’s just one of several issues where management has applied coercive pressure on cabin crew.

Flexible

Cabin crew have proved themselves to be flexible and reasonable in meeting the demands and challenges of a tough industry, particularly over the last twelve years, as the global aviation industry has gone through enormous changes. Together with other Aer Lingus staff, cabin crew have created a quality and profitable airline in extremely difficult circumstances. But it is possible to deliver flexibility and profitability and still maintain decent working conditions and respect for staff and their representatives.

Information meetings are taking place throughout the ballot period, and the ballot closes on Wednesday, 30^th October at noon.

IMPACT’s Retired Members’ Vocational Group is to host its second retired members’ seminar in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel on 6^th November. ‘Your Rights After Work’ will explore how IMPACT can work with other retired public servants’ groups. Top speakers will also outline retired members’ rights on pensions, the law, social welfare, health and other services.

Lunch will be provided by IMPACT and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and make comments. The seminar, which is free, is open to all retired workers who were previously members of IMPACT.

Speakers will include Edwina Jones and Brian Burke of the IMPACT Retired Members’ Vocational Group, and IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody and deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan. Jill Farrelly from the Citizens Information Board will talk about navigating the benefits system and Patricia Rickard Clarke will speak on the new legal framework that’s replacing the wards of court system. Other speakers are being confirmed.

For more information or an application form HERE or contact Bernie Aston (baston@impact.ie) or Julie Healy (jhealy@impact.ie). Or phone 01-817-1500.

E-bulletin 18 October 2013

IMPACT is now taking bookings from young members interested in attending the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s (ICTU) youth conference, which takes place in Dublin on 16^th and 17^th November. ‘Our future, our fight,’ which is for workers aged under 35, will discuss issues affecting young workers and ways of organising them into trade unions. It’s free for participants, but you must book through IMPACT. Nominations and expressions of interest should be made through Elaine Elliott at eelliott@impact.ie.

ICTU is again seeking nominations for its global solidarity champions training course, which starts in Dublin on Thursday 31^st October and finishes on the afternoon of Saturday 2^nd November. The aim of the programme is to equip participants to become global solidarity champions and help strengthen development education and international solidarity work within their union.

The programme will address issues facing workers around the world including trade union rights and the role of international trade union bodies and institutions like the International Labour Organisation.

If you want to attend the course you must book through IMPACT. Contact Roisin Nolan at rnolan@impact.ie. You can get more details on the course content from Louisa Gavin (louisa.gavin@ictu.ie).

IMPACT was challenging a bizarre HSE plan to outsource payroll for the new Children and Families Agency (CFA) in the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) yesterday (Thursday), after management admitted its proposal would cost the cash-strapped public health service €250,000 a year. IMPACT says the work can be done by existing staff at “little or no additional cost.”

The union has told the LRC that the proposal would also breach an agreement reached in the recent Haddington Road talks, which says shared services in HR and payroll must be kept in-house as a preferred option.

The LRC hearing is to reconvene next Tuesday (22nd October).

IMPACT official Robbie Ryan said it would be madness to spend an extra quarter of a million a year, particularly when management is seeking talks on shared payroll services across most of the health sector including the HSE and voluntary hospitals. He accused the HSE of refusing to fully cooperate with union efforts to calculate and achieve cost savings by keeping the work in-house.

“The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform recently told us that health service management claims it has 1,500 surplus staff. Now it’s telling us it can’t find ten people to reallocate to this work. Instead it wants to squander €250,000 of public money each and every year. Either it’s madness or there’s a more sinister privatisation agenda at play,” he said.

IMPACT says the cheapest and best solution is for the HSE to provide the CFA with payroll services on a shared-service basis. The union points out that management has constantly argued for more shared services, which are central to the reforms required under both the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements.

In meetings with HSE management, IMPACT has also put forward other options for providing payroll services using existing resources, including the possibility of redeploying staff to work on CFA payroll under Croke Park redeployment provisions. The union disputes management claims that it would need up to nine additional staff to keep the service in-house. This is because, even under HSE privatisation plans, most of the payroll work would be done by HSE staff.

IMPACT criticised this week’s budget approach for taking yet more cash out of the economy instead of introducing a serious stimulus to create jobs and consumer confidence to boost incomes and exchequer funds. But the union said it was positive to see ministers acknowledge public servants’ huge contribution to Ireland’s deficit reduction.

The union also welcomed signals that public service staffing restrictions are to be eased, with the promise of extra recruitment in some areas next year.

In his budget statement, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin acknowledged that payroll savings delivered by the Haddington Road agreement will be worth around €500 million in 2014 – in the region of 20% of next year’s budgetary adjustment.

He also announced a “reform dividend,” in the form of limited public service recruitment. IMPACT welcomed this and highlighted the need for new recruitment in health and social care, primary and mental health services, special needs provision, local authority services, and other areas that are crying out for extra staffing to improve services.

IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody said Minister Howlin’s statement was a timely reminder of the substantial contribution public servants are making to Ireland’s deficit reduction. “These substantial additional savings are arising because many public servants have had less in their pay packets since July 2013, while all public servants are working longer, and the vast majority are waiting longer for increments,” he said.

He said the Haddington Road measures come on top of 14% average pay cuts since 2009, a 30,000 reduction in staffing, and major cost-saving reforms delivered under the Croke Park deal, which together have delivered a €3.3 billion (17.7%) reduction in public service payroll costs between 2009 and mid-2013.

Commenting on the overall budget package, Mr Cody said that, while its limited stimulus and employment measures were welcome, they were insufficient to deal with the unemployment crisis.  “We should not continue to take billions out of an economy that badly needs a serious stimulus to create jobs and consumer confidence, which would generate exchequer revenue and help deal with the deficit,” he said.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) said the budget was “not up to the challenge of kick-starting recovery and getting people back to work,” while the left-leaning TASC think tank said it included “a mixture of progressive and regressive measures.”  The union-backed Nevin Institute said 2014 budget measures could lower employment levels “by around 30,000 below what they would have been without this adjustment.”

Full budget coverage here.

An historic banner from IMPACT’s Municipal Employees division is among the exhibits in an important display of trade union banners, which opened in the National Museum of Ireland earlier this month.

Created in around 1909, the ‘United Corporation Workmen of Dublin’ union banner was painted over to read ‘Irish Municipal Employees Trade Union’ in 1918. It is the oldest original banner in the exhibition, which includes facsimiles of beautiful union and guild banners from even earlier.

A magnificent contemporary tapestry, which tells the story of the 1913 Dublin lockout in 50 richly embroidered panels, is also on temporary display at the museum’s Collins barracks complex. And the museum is hosting a free morning seminar on the banners and lockout tapestry on Saturday 26^th October.

This month also saw the opening of the museum’s permanent display of artifacts from the lockout period. Its centre piece is the magnificently restored ‘Starry Plough’ flag of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen’s Army, which was raised in O’Connell Street during the 1916 Easter rising.

The temporary exhibition is on display in National Museum, Collins Barracks, Dublin 7 until 14th November 2013. Get details of other 1913 Lockout commemoration events HERE.

The end of the two-tier public service pay system, introduced when lower pay scales for new entrants were introduced at the beginning of 2011, will be announced soon with the publication of new unified pay scales.

The new scales will see post-2011 entrants ascend to pre-2011 scale points after two years, or less in some cases. As a result, most staff recruited after January 2011 will be earning more than their current scale allows once they reach their third scale point.

Many lower paid grades – including clerical officers and service officers – will see some benefit after one, rather than two, years.

Unified civil service pay scales are being compiled and the same approach is to be applied in other sectors to ensure there are unified pay scales across the public service for young workers and other new entrants.

As a result, all staff in any given grade will be on common pre-2011 pay scales, albeit with up to two additional post-2011 points added at the bottom of the scales.

The changes will apply to all staff who joined the civil and public service after January 2011, including those already in post. There will be no change for staff currently on the pre-2011 pay scales.

The new scales will reintroduce pay equity for young workers and other new entrants to the public service – a constant trade union demand since reduced pay scales were introduced.

IMPACT and other public service unions have been in negotiations on the issue since the Haddington Road agreement was finally accepted by a majority of unions. Haddington Road conceded the union demand that the two-tier pay system must end.

An official circular will soon issue on the calculation of cash deductions for public servants at the top of their scale who prefer to lose cash rather than incur a temporary loss of leave under the Haddington Road agreement. Negotiations on how the calculation will be done, which have been underway for some time, were near conclusion as this bulletin went to press.

Under Haddington Road, public servants who earn between €35,000 and €65,000 a year, and who are at the top of their scale, have to temporarily forfeit six days leave over the lifetime of the deal – or the cash equivalent. This is to reflect the fact that staff who are not at the top of scales will incur temporary delays in the payment of increments.

IMPACT insisted that the agreement gave staff the choice of a financial alternative if it suited them better than a temporary loss of leave. The Haddington Road deal gave the option of a cash deduction from salary worth the value of six annual leave days or half their most recent increment, whichever was the lesser. But Revenue problems arose over the implementation of this aspect of the deal. This led to the current negotiation on how the cash value of leave will be calculated.

Staff who earn between €35,000 and €65,000, and reach the top of the scale following a second increment paid during the lifetime of the agreement, must incur a once-off loss of three days leave or the cash equivalent. They are to be subject to the same formula for calculating the cash equivalent.

The loss of leave or the cash equivalent is not a permanent reduction; it’s a once-off loss of leave spread over the three-year period of the agreement.

Details will be posted on the IMPACT website as soon as they emerge.