IMPACT is awaiting a date for the Labour Relations Commission to conciliate on the issue of annual leave standardisation for staff who work in voluntary hospitals.

The union raised the issue in the talks that led to the Haddington Road agreement, where it won a commitment that management would re-engage on IMPACT’s demand that annual leave in voluntary hospitals be realigned with HSE arrangements.

The issue was referred to the Labour Court because little progress was made in direct talks. Following a hearing last week, the Court referred the issue back to the Labour Relations Commission.

The IMPACT Cabin Crew branch committee has accepted an interim Labour Court recommendation in the dispute about rosters. 

The recommendation was issued yesterday following Wednesday's engagement at the Labour Court. The committee agreed on Wednesday evening to defer two days of strike action planned for next week.

In a bulletin to members of the cabin crew branch, chairperson Angela McNeela and assistant general secretary Michael Landers said that the committee believes the Labour court recommendation "forms a good basis for the settlement of the issues in dispute and we will pursue this vigorously in detailed negotiations with Aer Lingus over the coming weeks."

The bulletin also stated that dates and times of general information meetings at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports would circulate to members shortly.

VIDEO: Aer Lingus cabin crew work stoppage Friday 30th May.

IMPACT has served notice of two one-day strikes, on Tuesday 24th June and Thursday 26th June, in South Dublin County Council. In an escalation of a two week old dispute over management’s unilateral imposition of pay cuts, the union’s members have also withdrawn phone cover between 12 noon and 2.30pm each day and have further restricted phone cover in County Hall and other council facilities.

Last month council management cut the pay of 13 of its staff and revealed plans to do the same to another 150 workers. The staff earmarked for further pay cuts have been carrying out extra work with additional responsibilities – some of them for as long as 12 years. Now the council says they must continue to do this work, but it is taking away the extra payment – called an ‘acting payment’ – that goes with it.

For the past two weeks limited industrial has included a refusal to staff public counters between 12.30pm and 2.30pm, the withdrawal of cooperation with evening meetings, an overtime ban, and a refusal to carry out duties at a higher grade.

IMPACT official Peter Nolan said the industrial action was being escalated because of management’s continued refusal to deal with the situation through proper procedures. He said staff had received huge support from councillors when they protested at the first council meeting last week.

“IMPACT has repeatedly told management it is willing to deal with the issue through established procedures and we just want a fair process to do this. Council staff have already experienced substantial pay cuts – averaging 14% – imposed on them in 2009 and 2010. Some of them – those earning over €65,000 a year – experienced a further pay cut in 2013. This is on top of the increased taxes and charges experienced by workers across the economy,” he said.

The union says staff in the council have cooperated with far-reaching productivity measures in recent years, including increased working time, reduced sickness leave, changes to annual leave, and cooperation with many other reform measures – as well as maintaining the range and quality of services despite a 25% cut in staff numbers since 2008.

The average public service pension – as measured by the median – is just €19,500 a year, according to new figures analysed by the trade union-backed Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI). In other words, half of retired public servants have a pension of under €19,500 before deductions.

A blog published by NERI director Tom Healy this week, also found that 90% of retired public servants receive pensions of less than €40,000 a year, while half get between €10,000 and €30,000.

The NERI figures don’t take account of tax, universal social charge or other deductions. Neither do they factor in income other than direct public service pension payments.

The public service pension bill is just over €3 billion a year, accounting for 16% of the public service pay bill.

IMPACT yesterday (Thursday) welcomed a decision by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to ask the chiefs of the HSE and Department of Health to investigate the sanction of a €250,000 salary for one senior manager in the Limerick hospitals group.

The union had written to PAC chairman John McGuinness last month to set out its concerns on corporate governance and senior staff salaries in the hospital group. IMPACT official Andy Pike said any proper investigation would show the expenditure – which is being channelled through a management consultancy – was unjustified.

“The HSE director general has said the mid-west hospital group needs additional administration staff to provide vital services to patients. The money spent employing just one management consultant would cover the costs of at least five clerical staff to help the hospitals cope with increasing demands. In these circumstances, staff very much resent reporting to a senior manager who is being paid at least twice the correct rate for the job,” he said.

The union is currently balloting members across five hospitals in the region to sanction a refusal to report to the manager. The ballot result is due on 20th June.

The PAC questioned HSE director general Tony O’Brien and Department of Health secretary general Ambrose McCloughlin on the matter yesterday.

Just 19 of 34 local authorities have so far formulated proposals on workforce planning, which is the first step towards regularising acting posts as agreed in the talks that led to the Haddington Road agreement. And, as the dispute in South Dublin County Council escalates with strike notice issued this week, IMPACT has referred the acting issue to the Labour Relations Commission in regard to two other local authorities – Waterford and Clare.

In a letter to branches at the end of last month, IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan advised them to consider industrial action ballots in counties where there has been no local engagement from management. He said disputes in “a number of counties” now looked likely.

Peter said the union fundamentally disagreed with the national employer body’s approach to negotiations on the conversion of long term acting posts into permanent posts. “The employers’ document – Workforce Plan 2012 – has not been agreed or accepted by IMPACT and, in the majority of local authorities, the level of meaningful local engagement with the union falls far below what we expected or require,” he said.

The union’s branches have also been advised not to agree the termination of any long-term acting allowances until all proper procedures have been exhausted.

ICTU president John Douglas has welcomed a Revenue Commissioners’ decision to formally wind up the Paris Bakery company. The move means workers there, who are owed large sums in unpaid wages, get access to the state insolvency fund.

A 19-day sit-in at the popular Moore Street café and bakery in Dublin ended on Tuesday after the Revenue decision was announced.

The Paris Bakery workers are owed over €100,000 in back wages and had called on the Government to intervene after the owners repeatedly refused to engage with them.

Mr Douglas said the Revenue decision gave the workers some long-overdue redress. “They deserve great credit for their resolve and courage throughout this dispute. “We have a fix for today’s problem, but not tomorrow’s issue," he said.

ICTU has demanded that the Government immediately close the legal loophole that allows employers to leave workers unpaid when a business runs into difficulty. Mr Douglas said the loophole was the sole cause of the Paris Bakery problem. In 2012, ICTU made a submission to the Government outlining how the legal loophole could be closed.

Migrant Rights Centre Ireland director Edel McGinley expressed delight that the workers could finally get on with their lives. “The current situation is clearly not good for workers, but it’s also not good for businesses. It’s bad for suppliers, who have to write off debts, it’s bad for wholesale customers left without supplies, and it’s bad for other small businesses who are undercut by rogue traders. The Government needs to act and change the law,” she said.  

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has vowed to campaign for more investment in public services and an end to outsourcing. The NCWI’s recent annual general meeting backed a trade union motion calling on the organisation to lobby on the issue.

Siobhan Curran from IMPACT’s HSE Dublin North branch told the meeting that most public servants are women, and that women also depend most on public service provision. “The economic crisis was not caused by women, but it's clear that women are suffering disproportionately,” she said.

She said outsourcing and privatisation posed a huge threat to public services. “Time and time again we have seen the privatisation of a public service lead to poorer standards, less accountability and often unsafe working conditions. Private businesses providing public services in the pursuit of profit are not concerned by the welfare of women. We need to keep the welfare of women as our concern,” she said.

Other trade union motions at the meeting addressed precarious work, equality for gay and lesbian workers, and the recent Paris bakery dispute.

Getting a job pays more than staying on welfare for the vast majority of people, according to a new study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). The study was presented at the ESRI "Budget Perspectives 2015" conference on Wednesday (11th June). 

Welfare Targeting and Work Incentives says that that work pays more than welfare for close to six out of seven unemployed people – even when in-work costs like childcare and travel to work are taken into account. The report states that, among those people either in work or unemployed and facing a situation where work pays less than welfare, more than 70% choose work rather than welfare. It states that the reasons for this include:

• Prolonged unemployment tends to reduce future wages
• Employment provides opportunities for wages to grow
• The non-financial benefits to being in work, including social and psychological benefits
• Compliance costs associated with welfare payments – such as requirements to attend training and to search for work – and penalties associated with non-compliance.

The study also states that policy initiatives to improve the reward from work are worthwhile, but will have only a limited impact on overall unemployment. The report says “More substantial reductions in unemployment will require a revival of international and national demand, and activation measures providing skills and training in areas where new jobs will arise.”

The Irish Congress Trade Unions has welcomed “an historic vote” at the International Labour Conference in favour of a binding protocol to ensure greater protection globally against forced labour.

The binding protocol supplements the existing Convention on Forced Labour and was passed overwhelming by delegates at the conference, with 437 in favour and just eight against. The Irish delegation - representing workers, employers and government - voted in favour.

Speaking after the vote, the Irish Worker Delegate to the conference, Congress Legal Affairs Officer Esther Lynch, called on the Irish Government to quickly ratify the protocol and “make those rights a reality for vulnerable workers, as Ireland was among the first countries to ratify the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), in 1931.

“Ratifying this protocol will advance prevention, protection and compensation measures for victims. Adopting the protocol will mean that all victims of forced or compulsory labour will have to have their employment rights upheld,” she said.

IMPACT has welcomed the resignation of Noel Daly as chair of the West-North West Hospital Group. His resignation came amid controversy about his company, the Health Partnership, being asked to review maternity services across the region.

IMPACT official Richy Carrothers said Mr Daly’s position had become untenable, and called for an independent review of the fiasco.

“Fundamental questions remain about why procurement policy was ignored and a contract given without a proper tender process. It also appears that nobody in authority raised the question of an obvious conflict of interest, which could have serious implications for maternity services across the West and North-West,” he said.