IMPACT is in talks with two other unions about the proposed creation of a new organisation, which would represent over 80,000 members in the public service, commercial bodies and state agencies. The New Union Project, which could bring together members of IMPACT, the Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU), and the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU) was strongly backed by the conferences of all three unions earlier this year.

It is expected that final proposals for the new union will be put to the members of each union in separate ballots next year, after talks about the details have been completed.

Part of the process of creating a new union involves giving it a name. So we’re running a competition – open to members of all three organisations – to help name the proposed new union. A Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet will be awarded to the person who makes the best suggestion.

Read more about the competition here.

IMPACT and other trade unions have joined with campaign organization Uplift to seek improved tenant protections and security of tenure. A new ‘secure rents’ campaign is petitioning the Government to regulate rent increases by linking them to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The campaign was launched last week in response to the escalating rent crisis. Other unions involved include the Communications’ Workers Union (CWU), Mandate, Siptu and Unite.

The campaign petition calls on housing minister Simon Coveney to:

1. Regulate rent increases by linking them to the CPI
2. Revoke the right of landlords to evict tenants for the purpose of sale
3. Move from current four-year leases to indefinite lease terms.

Speaking at the Dublin launch of the campaign, IMPACT lead organiser Joe O’Connor said: “After years of excessive rent increases thousands of workers, students, parents and children are struggling to keep a roof over their head due to unaffordable rents. Many more have seen their living standards and disposable income cut to the bone.

“Without Government intervention, the situation is set to get a lot worse. People are at the end of what they can cope with. On a societal level we can no longer tolerate a situation where working people often spend more than half their income keeping a roof over their heads.

“Economically, it is imperative that people have spending money left over after rent day to support local businesses. Morally, we cannot allow any more of our citizens to be driven into homelessness.”

The campaign includes an online calculator which allows tenants to calculate how much rent they are likely to pay in five years’ time based on what they are currently paying and projected future increases.

Find out more from the campaign leaflet.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has told a special Dáil committee that Ireland’s health system needs a major programme of transformational change if it is to provide a “universal, fully integrated, single-tier public health service that guarantees access and quality care regardless of income.”

At an oral hearing last week, ICTU general secretary Patricia King elaborated on the unions’ written submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare. She said that several reform proposals over the past three decades had failed to deliver the fair health service that people crave.

“It is clear that real transformational change has not occurred and we continue to have a dysfunctional system in which the perverse incentives that encourage private over public practice persist,” she said.

Read Patricia King’s statement to the committee here.

Statutory registration means that individual health and social care professionals will have to apply to be accepted onto a professional register before they are permitted to practise, or continue to practise in Ireland. CORU is the statutory registration body for this.

The IMPACT website gives information on which professionals are required to register; the dates for the opening of these registers; what the registration fee is; what does compulsory registration mean in the practise of the profession; continuing professional development and dealing with fitness to practise complaints.

In a separate development the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists (ISCP) has sought IMPACT’s support as it directs its members not to register with the new physiotherapy register under CORU, due to a dispute with the Minister for Health, Simon Harris TD. IMPACT has requested that physiotherapist members do not register with CORU while the dispute is ongoing. See news story in this e-bulletin.

IMPACT and other trade unions have vowed to continue their campaign of opposition to international trade agreements that put workers’ rights and public services at risk. Speaking after the EU and Canada signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) last week, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said the “undemocratic deal” would put investors before citizens.

The next phase of the union campaign will focus on Irish TDs and senators because the CETA accord must now be adopted by every EU national parliament before it can become permanent. The signing of the accord last week only puts it in place on a provisional basis.

ICTU’s international development officer David Joyce said: “This anti-democratic deal privileges investors over EU citizens and will open up key public services to privatisation. It could also harm labour standards and protections across the European Union.”

He said unions would continue to oppose the deal, which would see the creation of a special system of secretive courts where investors could sue governments if they believe official policy would harm their profits. “This would give corporations huge power over policy formation. This is fundamentally anti-democratic and must not be allowed to proceed unchallenged,” he said.

ICTU has called on the Irish Government to facilitate a full debate on CETA and other proposed deals like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). “Last month the Seanad passed a motion calling on the Government not to agree to the provisional application of CETA, which they appear to have ignored," said Joyce.

Read our TTIP explainer here.

Read IMPACT’s submission on TTIP and related trade talks here.

IMPACT has called on the Government to shore up support for the Lansdowne Road agreement among public servants by bringing forward talks on further pay restoration. In a series of media interventions over the last ten days, the union has warned that support for the agreement will evaporate if the Government treats any group more favourably than the rest.

In an interview with the Irish Independent this week, IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody warned the Government not to confuse the silence of the majority of public servants with weakness. “No group stands alone. Everybody was put into FEMPI [the law that introduced pay cuts] together and everybody's going to have to come out of it together,” he said.


Earlier, a blog by the union’s head of communications, Bernard Harbor, said the Government must stick to the position that all groups of public servants will be treated equally and within the framework of the Lansdowne Road.

But he said the agreement was “a framework, not a straightjacket” and called on the Government to open talks on a successor to Lansdowne Road in the first half of 2017. This would allow pay recovery to “be accelerated for all public servants if the exchequer continues to strengthen faster than envisaged when the agreement was signed,” he said.

This year, the Lansdowne Road agreement delivered the first positive adjustments in public service pay since before the economic crisis. Last month, the Government allocated €290 million in the budget for further pay restoration in 2017.

IMPACT has warned management at the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) of staff concerns over proposals to temporarily move the Seanad into NMI’s building on Kildare Street in Dublin. IMPACT national secretary Angela Kirk said there was real concern and anxiety among staff about the impact on museum visitors.

“While museum staff are concerned about the likely disruption, their main worry is about the effect this is going to have on their ability to deliver a professional service and a meaningful experience to visitors. The proposed move would shut down the NMI’s only venue for large-scale public and educational events. The museum’s capacity to offer educational programmes and public engagement opportunities would be restricted for at least the next three years, possibly longer,” she said.

The union says space allocated for Seanad business would also affect work areas. “Staff would have to be accommodated elsewhere in an already overcrowded building, leading to the loss of even more public space,” according to Angela.

IMPACT also questioned claims that the museum will ultimately benefit from spending allocated to accommodate the Seanad move. “The best that the museum can hope for is to get the building back in the same condition. Staff are concerned that, after an expenditure of this magnitude, the Houses of the Oireachtas may be unwilling ever to return the full building to the museum.”

Angela also said that the proposed installation of a lift will only provide access from Leinster House, giving no benefit to the museum or its visitors. “This is despite the efforts of NMI staff, over many years, to provide a lift to make the upper levels of the museum accessible to all. These arguments have been ignored but, as soon as a lift is considered necessary for senators, it appears to be easily done,” she said.

Angela called on management to “clearly articulate its opposition to the Seanad proposal in the interests of museum visitors, museum staff and the long term integrity of the Kildare Street building.”

An industrial action ballot of local authority library staff is set to get underway next week if management proceeds with plans to pilot staffless libraries in a further 23 locations across the state. IMPACT, which is preparing to meet management on the issue next week, has also called an information meeting in Dublin next Monday. It is open to all IMPACT members working in the library service.

Meanwhile, the executive committees of the two IMPACT divisions concerned – the local government and municipal employees divisions – are finalising plans for a dispute following a meeting of the union’s Libraries Vocational Group last week.

IMPACT national secretary Peter Nolan said the union was strongly opposed to the management proposals, which would see a further rollout of staffless service pilots to 23 locations in 20 local authorities.

“This proposal could lead to further staff losses in a sector that was worst hit during the recession. The union is also concerned about the possible erosion of terms and conditions for library staff, and health and safety protections in our libraries,” he said.

The IMPACT information meeting takes place at 11.30am on Monday 7^th November at IMPACT head office, Nerney’s Court, Dublin, D01 R2C5 (phone 01-817-1500). Only members of IMPACT who work in local authority library services are eligible to attend the meeting, which will provide an update on management proposals and the union’s industrial action ballot. Car parking at Nerney’s Court is extremely limited.

Members of IMPACT’s education division took part in last week’s rally for pay equality for teachers, which was organised by the INTO and TUI teacher unions. The #equalpayforequalwork event, which gathered at the Dáil last Thursday, delivered a message to Oireachtas members that “pay equality is still very much on the agenda.”

INTO members in Cork simultaneously held a rally at Patrick’s Bridge.

Addressing the rally, IMPACT official Barry Cunningham spoke on behalf of special needs assistants, school secretaries other non-teaching staff.

“We’re here to support the campaign for pay equality because of the great working relationship between IMPACT and members of the INTO and TUI. That relationship has been forged in classrooms and schools throughout the country.

“We work side by side and it’s a source of pride to our members that we are helping to deliver a high quality education experience for every school-going child, including those with special education needs,” he said.

Last September, the INTO secured agreement, under the Lansdowne Road deal, on the full restoration of qualification allowances to teachers who started work after February 2012. However, this did not resolve the issue of equal pay for all those who have entered the profession since January 2011.

The union said it remains determined to progress the issue of full pay equality, and that the rally was part of that work.

Clerical and admin staff at Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda have overwhelmingly backed industrial action over staff cuts that have closed the hospital’s health promotion department. A massive 95% of staff voted to act in response to the hospital group’s decision to let several clerical officers go.

The staff were working on agency contracts, which IMPACT wants converted to permanent posts. Some of the workers were dismissed with just 24 hours’ notice. The rest either have no contract or have short-term contracts, many of which are due to expire shortly.

The union said a review by hospital management found that up to 47 clerical officers were needed to run the hospital. It has advised members not to cooperate with redeployment and not to carry out the work of dismissed colleagues.

IMPACT official Ray Ryan said: “We had no choice but to ballot our members for industrial action to protect staff whose jobs have become vulnerable and to convince management that all these posts are necessary and should be filled permanently.”

The industrial action will initially take the form of a work to rule, including a refusal to provide statistical information to management. Ray said the union remained available for talks, but that an escalation was likely if the issue remained unresolved.