SIPTU members vote in favour of Section 39 pay proposals
SIPTU union members working for charity-run healthcare bodies have voted by nine to one in favour of pay proposals from the WRC.
The Section 39 staff were in dispute because their employers were refusing to roll back recession-era pay cuts.
That was despite people with similar jobs in the HSE having their pay levels restored.
SIPTU says the WRC proposal creates "a mechanism to achieve full pay restoration" for Section 39 workers.
The trade union's Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: “This result is the culmination of over 18 months of hard work by our members and organisers in getting pay justice for Section 39 on the Government's agenda.
"We started on this journey to win full pay restoration for our members and to re-establish the pay link between Section 39 workers and their counterparts in the public health service. These proposals go a long way towards achieving everything we set out to win for our members”
Our job now is to make sure that the Government and the employers live up to their side of the bargain and pay our members what they are owed as agreed.
SIPTU Sector Organiser, Eddie Mullins, said: “During this entire dispute and ballot, our members demonstrated great compassion and responsibility by doing everything in their power to achieve a legitimate objective without affecting services to vulnerable clients.”
“Our members now have a right result, light at the end of the tunnel and a mechanism to achieve full pay restoration,” he said.
