29/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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A Victory for Support Grade Workers

As we prepare to ballot, let us reflect on the objectives of our PAY JUSTICE campaign, how far we have come by working together and what the NEXT STEPS in our campaign can achieve for you and thousands of members of our union.

The Recommendation comes at the end of a hard fought campaign in which you, the members, demonstrated your determination by taking strike action last June.

This action was taken after deep consideration, as a last resort, after the Government attempted to deny SIPTU members who were successful in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Job Evaluation scheme payment until 2021 and 2022.

Due to our members taking to the picket line intervention was made and after over 10 days the Labour Court determined that the objectives pursued by SIPTU representatives be addressed starting in September 2019.

Labour Court Recommendation at a Glance

SIPTU shop stewards have been the key factor in making the Support Staff Job Evaluation a reality for thousands of members across the country. Our campaign had two pillars:

  • Payment in 2019 to members successful in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of a Job Evaluation Scheme
  • A commencement and closing date for Job Evaluation for members in Phase 4

These two key objectives have been addressed and secured in Labour Court Recommendation 22066

To see LCR22066 in full click here.

Phase 1 and Phase 2

Should the Labour Court Recommendation be accepted, payments due to members successful in Phase 1 and Phase 2 will commence 1st September, 2019.

Phase 4

A commencement date for evaluation of members in Phase 4 will commence immediately on acceptance of the Recommendation.

In recognition of the timeframe to conclude Job Evaluations accurately and fairly, the Labour Court has recommended the cut-off date for completion of these evaluations and any payments due to members to not go beyond 1st January, 2021.

For Payment, For Progress. Vote in Favour of Pay Justice

As the Labour Court Recommendation delivers on the key objectives of our Pay Justice campaign we recommended that members VOTE IN FAVOUR of the recommendation.

A YES VOTE will help us move to the next phase of the campaign where thousands of members will receive increases in pay and thousands more will enter a process that allows for their jobs to be evaluated.

Public Service Stability Agreement

SIPTU members will also receive a pay boost of 1.75% this September due under the Public Service Stability Agreement and a further 2% increase in October 2020. This is in addition to upgrades and increases due to our members in all phases of Job Evaluation.

New Entrants

New Entrants agreement not effected by Labour Court recommendation.

Use your vote

SIPTU members in 38 hospitals and health care facilities will be voting on Labour Court Recommendation 22066 from Monday 12th August 2019 until Wednesday, 18th September, 2019.

Please contact your local Shop Steward and/or SIPTU representative for ballot details.

28/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Chefs: A Step Closer to Pay Justice 

Chefs throughout the Irish Health Service have moved a significant step closer to securing pay justice.

Following intensive discussions and a lengthy industrial and political campaign the Labour Court has recommended that the Health Service Executive engage in a twelve week process under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission.

Thanks to the commitment and determination of our members and elected shop stewards SIPTU has secured a green light to negotiate the application of Craft Grades for Chef professionals employed in the health service.

The two key features of Labour Court Recommendation 22065:

  • A set twelve week time for negotiations.
  • Should the parties not reach agreement the Labour Court will intervene, address the parties on the issues in dispute and make a recommendation to bring our pay justice campaign to a conclusion.

The challenge

SIPTU representatives must secure the necessary funding of €2.2 million to make the initial jump to the new pay scales established for Craftworkers on a cost neutral basis.

SIPTU and Chef Shop Stewards have a significant amount of research already available having already completed a review of the Cooks Report through an independent process.


The opportunity 

The HSE and SIPTU have agreed to base our negotiations on the data available in this independent report which delivers pay justice and a recognised robust pay scale.

The decision on how we move forward is now yours. We are asking you to VOTE IN FAVOUR of the Labour Court Recommendation as the best way forward to secure pay justice for you and your profession.

Completing the journey 

It is through your determination and commitment which has made it possible to convince the HSE and the Labour Court that the issue of pay for Chef Professionals will not go away and must be resolved.

Let’s take the next steps to complete the journey.

Read the Labour Court recommendation here

25/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Lockout Series: The divine mission of discontent

The Lockout of 1913, lasted from August 26th, 1913 to January 18th, 1914, and is generally viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Irish history.

Central to the dispute was the workers’ right to organise in a general trade union.

Employer William Martin Murphy banned his workers from being members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). Employers had been growing concerned about the growth of trade unionism and in particular the ITGWU and its charismatic leader, Jim Larkin, who had been organising Dublin’s low-paid workers, many of whom lived in slums.

On the eve of the 106th anniversary of the tram worker strike that signalled the beginning of the Lockout, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady looks at what we can learn from the Lockout, especially in building solidarity among workers and grasping the promise of a better future for all.

Fear and cynicism has always been the Right’s best weapon against working people.

How often have you heard it said that unions used to do a good job but have no chance in a modern world dominated by multinational corporations, forever on the scrounge for the cheapest labour and lowest tax regime?

When backs are up against the wall, isn’t it easier to blame the poor, the unemployed or migrants for falling living standards rather than big business or bankers’ greed?

And, as for politicians, why bother placing faith in them when the real decisions are taken in Brussels or Berlin, and few seem ready to stand up for ordinary families’ rights?

But the great Dublin Lockout of 1913 reminds us that organised labour can cut through the pessimism, build cross border solidarity and offer the promise of a better future.

The genius of both Larkin and Connolly was not just in organising workers, but in politicising and mobilising them.

They convinced working people in their hundreds of thousands that organisation in its broadest sense – both industrial and political – was the route to a better life.

And that organisation will always be the best chance workers have of receiving a fair share of power and the wealth we create.

Big Jim Larkin knew there would always be setbacks along the way. But he didn’t throw in the towel because one battle was lost.

The great convulsions that began in Dublin in the summer of 1913 took a long time to bear fruit.

Larkin knew that solidarity was the difference between subjugation and liberation – an insight that helped drive the emergence of a vibrant labour movement here in Ireland.

However, arguably the most important lesson from the Dublin Lockout a century ago is that unions need to be at the heart of a popular social movement – something the Lockout leaders knew instinctively.

It’s an approach that needs reimagining for a new century.

We cannot afford to retreat into our comfort zone of committees, composite motions and conferences.

Instead we must rediscover that ‘divine mission of discontent.’

After all, work unites us all, from the high-tech professional to the factory worker, and the Deliveroo driver to the hard-pressed home care worker.

Unions can bind new communities together, both real and virtual, to build a new movement that promotes our enduring values of equality, dignity and justice.

These are profoundly tough times for working people everywhere. We are up against a system of global capitalism that fails the great majority and favours the rich few, that is not only attacking our living standards but is also destroying our planet.

But from Dublin to Delhi, ordinary women and men can demand something better, something different, a global economy that genuinely puts people before profits.

If we build a new broad popular movement and pull together for a common cause, then we can lay the foundations for a union renaissance.

A century ago, working people in Dublin sacrificed everything for what they believed in – the right to work, the right to a decent standard of living, and the right to be in a union.

Building that same spirit of hope, optimism and gritty determination is within our grasp today. And then the modern day William Murphy’s will be quaking in their boots.

11/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Sunday Read: Liberty Hall’s courageous caretaker

“YOU are quite at liberty…” With these words, caretaker Peter Ennis greeted the early morning raiding party at Liberty Hall on Friday 22nd August 1919.

September 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of Wicklow-born Ennis’ resulting court martial.

On the Wednesday prior to the raid, Christopher Quigley, a news vendor, had induced Private S Morrison, of the 3rd Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, to procure a rifle for sale. A deal was struck for £2 and the rifle was passed through a window at the Hall. Quigley’s and Morrison’s subsequent arrests led to the raid.

A detailed account of the 4am raid and Ennis’ trial is documented in the British National Archives at Kew.

Having greeted the raiding party with the words, “You are quite at liberty”, Ennis continued his good humoured banter by asking, “Are you going to pay me overtime for this, sir?” The search uncovered firearms and Ennis, as the only resident, was arrested.

He was registered as prisoner 499 at Mountjoy Prison, where he was also listed as a ‘hunger striker’. An approval by the Chief Secretary of Ireland allowed Ennis to sign union papers while at Mountjoy.

Ennis’ court martial took place on 24th September 1919. He was successfully defended by the eminent republican barrister Patrick Lynch KC, who would later serve as Attorney General. Ennis co-accused Quigley, on the other hand, was sentenced to a year in prison.

In what seemingly was a reprisal for his acquittal, late one evening the Black and Tans ‘lifted’ Ennis from the Hall, brought him to the Custom House railings and beat him mercilessly on the head with revolvers.

Years later, Ennis’ obituary stated that he had “given himself up for dead” at the time. Suffering terribly, he dragged himself back over the cobbles at Beresford Place to the Hall and was able to close the door. According to the obituary, he then “swooned from loss of blood and lay almost unconscious until discovered the next morning”.

His obituary recalled that this was one of “many occasions” that Ennis had “exciting and almost fatal encounters with the armed forces of Dublin Castle”. During the Easter Rising, and under James Connolly’s orders to leave “as the union needed him”, he had staged a dramatic escape from the GPO under machine gun fire to return to Liberty Hall.

As a resident at Liberty Hall during the War of Independence, he found himself at the centre of several incursions into the building by Crown Forces. Ennis was often alone during these raids and his apartment was frequently ransacked.

On one occasion he saved Liberty Hall from certain destruction when men in ‘plain clothes’ broke in and poured petrol over the woodwork. Another time, Ennis and William O’Brien were bringing “documents” out when they were confronted by “as murderous a gang of Tans that ever shot a civilian”.

Ennis later remarked that “only for the old bolshie, I was gone that time”.

Ennis is remembered as a trade union activist and a prominent socialist.

He joined the newly-formed Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) in April 1904 and would remain a staunch member, serving on committees, presiding at meetings and speaking on public platforms, before taking a central role in James Connolly’s Independent Labour Party of Ireland (ILP) from 1912 to 1914.

He was a trade unionist with the National Union of Dock Labourers before becoming a founding member of Irish Transport and General Workers Union in January 1909.

Ennis co-signed the first Rules of the ITGWU. At Liberty Hall, he served three giants of Irish labour history – Jim Larkin, James Connolly and William O’Brien.

Sadly, his wife Mary Kate who shared his life at the Hall died on 15th April 1914, aged only 31. Peter Ennis died on the 2nd January 1927, aged 51.

Rosie Hackett cared for him in his failing health. More than 3,000 mourners attended his removal, described by the Irish Independent as “an exceptionally large cortege”.

A plaque honouring Peter Ennis was erected in 1927 in Liberty Hall and can be seen today in the Irish Labour History Society Museum.

06/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Labour Court recommends increases in pay for health support staff

SIPTU representatives have today (Tuesday 7th August) confirmed that the Labour Court has recommended increases in pay for over 7,000 SIPTU members working in support grades across the health service.

The court issued two recommendations aimed at resolving the dispute involving support grade staff and chefs in the health service.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: “The Labour Court has recommended that members receive significant increases in pay in from 1st September 2019.

If accepted, SIPTU members evaluated under phase 1 and phase 2 of the support staff job evaluation scheme will receive increases in pay ranging from around 6% to 13%. These payments are in addition to the 1.75% increase in pay due in September 2019 under the terms of the Public Service Stability Agreement. The Labour Court also recommends a pathway for members who have yet to have their jobs evaluated with specific cut off days for completion and under the existing formula.

“In a separate Labour Court recommendation, our chef members have also taken a significant step closer to securing pay justice with the Labour Court recommending that a 12 week proactive process, under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission, is undertaken by the union and the Health Service Executive. This engagement will seek to build on the work already undertaken in order to assess and evaluate the pay issues particular to chefs and head chefs in the health service.”

He added: “Union representatives will continue to assess the detail of the recommendations. The final decision is in the hands of our membership, who will be balloted on the terms of the recommendation. Balloting will commence Monday, 12th August and conclude on Wednesday, 18th September and we will be issuing further communications and literature in the coming days.”

04/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Sunday Read: Greed and the housing market

There is a tendency to discuss property developers and landlords in terms of ‘greed’. The implication is that if there was less ‘greed’ in the area of housing, we might be closer to the goal of affordability – whether that means affordable rents or house prices.

However, the private players in the housing market are acting rationally. They follow the market signals. They attempt to maximise their investment.

The problem does not lie with their behaviour. It lies with policy makers who create and maintain markets (yes, governments create, organise and structure markets – they are not some natural phenomenon). And the Irish housing market is structured to favour the highest return, regardless of social need or economic efficiency.

Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy’s recent love affair with co-living developments is an example. Co-living involves a number of rental units in a complex which share kitchen facilities and other common areas.

The actual living quarters are tiny (16 square metres; prison cells are 7 square metres) with pull down beds. One proposed development will see 42 people – all paying market rents – sharing one kitchen.

Murphy says people should be ‘excited’ about these developments. But as a leading housing commentator, Mel Reynolds, has pointed out, it’s the developers who will be most excited.

Why? Because they can cram in more people and, so, more rents into a smaller space. Instead of two normal rental units (two beds), a developer can now squeeze in five units into the same space.

The maths are pretty simple. Five rent-paying tenants will yield more return than two rent paying tenants. But it gets worse. Co-living developments drive up land prices due to the expectation of a higher return for an acre of land. This will increase normal apartment rents and new house prices. Land can account for up to one third of the cost of a housing development. No balconies, no parking and no obligation to provide the legally mandated 10% social housing that every other developer has to sell to the State at a discount: there is money to be made in co-living arrangements. Money for developers.

This could lead to a two-tier housing market, especially in Dublin. Tiny, co-living apartment spaces and developments geared towards the high-end of the market where rents can rise to €3,000 per month or more.

This will leave low and average income workers (and even higher paid workers) without any supply. They will have to choose between un-liveable units or un-affordable units. Or, they will have to move out of Dublin (this is already happening) raising questions of sustainable work/life balance and the cost and time of getting to work.

Eventually, this process will push up prices outside of Dublin (again, this is already happening). Why blame developers for pursuing the highest return? They are following the logic of the market. But this logic is a political one and can be changed by government policy – at both national and local level.

SIPTU has emphasised the need to use land that is already publicly owned to provide public housing for all – for those on waiting lists and for workers. Public housing development is not based on land prices, developers’ margins or profits.

However, we also need the private sector to operate in tandem with public need. All private housing developments should be led by democratic regulations that require proper living accommodation accessible to a wide range of income groups. It should not be led by developers’ interests.

It is up to both councillors and TDs to draw up the regulations to ensure, whether public or private, that housing policy serves the interests of people and not the highest yield.

03/08/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Labour Court recommendation set to be issued next week

SIPTU Health representatives have today (Saturday, 3rd August) confirmed that the Labour Court will issue recommendations aimed at resolving the dispute involving support grade staff and chefs in the health service by the end of next week.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: “We expect that court will issue recommendations before the end of next week (Friday, 9th August). When the court issues its recommendation we will communicate its content and the position of our union to our members directly. We would like to thank our shop stewards, staff and activists for their determination, hard work and efforts in attempting to resolve this dispute without further impacting on public services or members pay.”

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