To all LGBT workers celebrating Pride, the country will sorely miss the energy and the colour of the annual celebrations this weekend. Celebrations aside, Pride is Protest, and TULF stands with the LGBT community here in Ireland and everywhere against discrimination, inequality and prejudice. We want to express our solidarity with the increasingly ostracised LGBT community in Poland. Pride serves as a reminder to all within the trade union movement that these fights are far from won, and the hard-won gains of recent decades are under threat from far right and reactionary forces. Some of our LGBT community have rightly […]

Dear Member, Many of you will have been deeply concerned at this week’s High Court decision striking down the electrical Sectoral Employment Order and, by implication, other SEOs.  This has major implications for members in the construction sector, as well as members in other sectors intending to apply to an SEO. Unite has called on the Government to seek a stay of the decision followed by an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court, and we are also seeking robust emergency legislation protecting the terms and conditions enshrined in existing SEOs.  Even in the absence of Sectoral Employment Orders, however, Unite […]

Trade Union Left Forum condemns the ruling yesterday in the High Court that found Sectoral Employment Orders (SEOs) unconstitutional. These pieces of legislation are enacted to protect workers, from exploitation by employers. They guarantee minimum rates of pay & conditions, including sick pay schemes, pension contributions for all employers in the sector, including those who had not been part of the negotiations. The robustness of the legislation is clearly defective as a small body representing small and medium-sized electrical firms have successfully challenged the industrial relations amendment act 2015 and the 2019 sectoral employment order for Electrical Contracting sector made […]

Dublin-based pilots at CityJet will stage a protest today (Tuesday) at the airline’s offices in Swords as the company recommences flights with Irish registered aircraft but Dublin pilots remain grounded by temporary lay-offs. The protest is taking place in response to confirmation by CityJet that the planned closure of its Dublin base will mean the company will hire pilots from outside the state to fill resulting job vacancies, effectively offshoring the work of Dublin-based pilots. The pilots, who are represented by IALPA, a branch of Fórsa, have said that a number of wide ranging proposals by pilots designed to keep […]

Fórsa has declared its support for Debenhams workers across Ireland, who are protesting today (Friday) in a nationwide picket of stores. The demonstration takes place between 11am and 3pm as part of their campaign to win redundancy pay for more than 1,000 workers sacked by the company. In a message sent to the Debenhams workers and their union, Mandate, Fórsa president Ann McGee and general secretary Kevin Callinan said the workers had the full backing of Fórsa in their campaign. In a message sent to the Debenhams workers and their union, Mandate, Fórsa president Ann McGee and general secretary Kevin […]

SIPTU seeks urgent talks with Aer Lingus over planned job losses Date Released: 19 June 2020 SIPTU representatives are calling for an urgent meeting with Aer Lingus management following todays (Friday, 19th June) announcement of 500 planned redundancies at the airline. SIPTU Aviation Sector Organiser Neil McGowan said: “The announcement from management that it has informed the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty. that it plans to reduce the numbers at the airline by 500 workers has shocked and upset our members in Aer Lingus. “SIPTU representatives will seek to ensure that the as many jobs as […]

Malaysia: Stop union busting at Edgenta UEMS In partnership with the National Union of Workers in Hospital Support and Allied Services. NUWHSAS is a national union representing all cleaning workers employed by private concessionaire companies providing cleaning services at all Government Hospitals in Malaysia.   UEM Group Berhad, a Malaysian government linked company (GLC), through its subsidiary, Edgenta UEMS, is currently engaged in a vicious union busting campaign, aggressively victimizing frontline hospital cleaners and their worksite union officials. Since early 2020, the hospital janitors have been confronted by problems of widespread union busting activities in all its hospitals, like deliberate changing […]

Congress warns that safety cannot be compromised as workers gradually return to the workplace 4 Jun 2020 Patricia King, General Secretary of the ICTU said today, “It is crucial as we move to Phase 2 that we ensure the re-opening of the economy is done in a safe manner and in line with public health guidance”.  She was speaking on the eve of the likely cabinet decision to move to Phase 2 as we gradually emerge from the Covid-19 crisis. The General Secretary said “now more than ever we must re-double our focus and ensure that as workers return to their […]

The Covid-19 pandemic represents a crisis of unprecedented proportions for the working classes and yet the response of the leadership of the large trade unions has been lacklustre to put it mildly. In an Irish Times article co-authored with SIPTU General Secretary Joe Cunningham (“Social solidarity must be central to post-emergency” April 20th), and again in a lengthy article on Fórsa’s website (“Ireland, the Pandemic and the EU Recovery Plan”), Fórsa’s General Secretary Kevin Callinan has articulated a vision for the way forward based on social partnership (re-packaged as “social dialogue”) at both Irish and EU level. The Trade Union […]

Press Release SIPTU calls on Programme for Government negotiators to stop pension age increase Date Released: 28 May 2020 SIPTU representatives have called on Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party to ensure that the deferral of the planned pension age increase to 67 next year is included in any agreed Programme for Government. SIPTU research, Michal Taft said: “The campaign to stop the increase in the pension age to 67 next year and to establish a Stakeholders Forum to examine the future of our pension system won the support of many voters in the general election earlier this […]