A day of hope
by Róisín McKane

Leaving cert students who wish to be assessed for calculated grades can register to do so from this morning. The Calculated Grades Student Portal will start accepting registrations from 10am today and will remain open until 10pm on Thursday. 

 

ICTU's Patricia King has warned Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe against considering cutting the €350 weekly pandemic payment at any time in the near future, and said that in the absence of a completely new social income system under a new government that any talk of cutting the €350 weekly payment “should be off the agenda”. 

 

A total of 1.7 million days are lost due to workplace bullying at a cost to the economy of €239 million per year, according to a new NUI Galway study on workplace bullying. Read more about that here. 

 

Coillte has announced that all nine of its forests in Dublin are changing to non-commercial recreational use. The move means an end to commercial operations in the woods and will result in more bio diverse and climate resilient forests.

 

Elsewhere, doctors and medical professionals globally have called on world leaders to ensure a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis that takes account of air pollution and climate breakdown. 

 

The Times explores the costs and stresses of e-working, and claims that Revenue, employers and the law have yet to catch up. 

 

Our own Joe O’Connor will be on Clare FM at 10.20am this morning to discuss the protection of workers during the pandemic, and all things four-day-week.

 

IALPA has warned that blanket quarantine will devastate tourism, aviation and trade in this letter to The Irish Times.

 

PDFORRA, which represents around 6,500 enlisted personnel in the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps, has made a written complaint to the European Social Rights Committee (ESRC) about the government's failure to allow its members to affiliate with the umbrella union body ICTU. Read more about that here.

 

And finally, SIPTU has called on employers in the contract cleaning sector to honour a 40 cent-per-hour pay increase for cleaners that they say has been agreed upon but not implemented. 

 

Our zen this morning is of the Marmite variety. You'll either love it, or judge me heavily for loving it. Here's Daði Freyr (of Icelandic Eurovision fame) with his new song about lockdown. 

 

Have a good day. 

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