On Friday, Martin Wall reported in the Irish Times that Fórsa has indicated that "any new pay agreement with the Government should seek to roll back longer working hours introduced for staff following the economic crash a decade ago." It followed the pay-related news item published in our news bulletins on Friday.

The Irish Times' business column, Cantillon, gave its verdict on Saturday to the four day week campaign thus: "A slow burn of a campaign worth keeping an eye on." High praise from that quarter.

Elsewhere at the weekend, RTE reported on the latest on pay from Aer Lingus, while the ASTI is to ballot for strike action over Covid-19 concerns as mass testing has detected an additional 43 cases of Covid-19 from a total of 2,400 students and teachers at 99 schools. Today's news is dominated by a wide range of Covid-related stories.

Sunday's Business Post led with news that a 100 thousand jobs in the hospitality sector are at risk, and editorialises on the 'jobs disaster coming down the tracks.' There's good news about our library services as the Sunday Times reported that Irish book borrowers are going online at a faster rate, with more titles downloaded from a library app so far this year than during all of 2019.

On our blog this morning Michele Rohan and Ian Thomas explain how CE supervisors still have 'unfinished business' with the current administration.

Elsewhere, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) is calling on all political parties to make sick pay mandatory for all workers within the lifetime of the current government. Congress general secretary Patricia King has also called for a reversal of the reductions to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment rates for workers affected by the Level 3 Covid restrictions for Dublin.

Your Zen moment this morning comes from television composer Nick Harvey. Nick's dad, also a musician, is living with dementia, but retains an exceptional ability to improvise and compose beautiful melodies "on the fly."  He shares a video of his dad improvising from four random notes provided by Nick as a starting point. Have a listen.

Your Monday Zen bonus is from closer to home. REPUBLIC OF SOUND is an arts programmes developed by Common Ground, an arts development organisation whose staff are represented by Fórsa.

Since early 2019 musicians Maeve and Colm O’Hara and Alex Petcu Colan have been working with 3rd class pupils from Our Lady of Lourdes national school Inchicore, St James' Band and the women's group from the Family Resource Centre, Inchicore. Covid meant their latest composition could not be performed live, but it has now been preserved in a beautiful short film, which you can view by clicking the image above.

Have a good week.

Niall