Dr Laura Bambrick explains what workers need to know about their new legal right to be paid sick pay if they are too unwell to work. Up until New Year’s Day 2023 Irish employment law did not require employers to pay their staff when absent due to illness or injury. Sick pay was treated as a perk of the job that employers had the power to decide whether or not to include in a contract of employment.  As a result, half of the workforce, over one million workers, are not covered for paid sick leave in their terms and conditions.  […]

The 42nd National Conference of the All-India Trade Union Congress is taking place in Alappuzha, Kerala on 17-20 December 2022 with the participation of delegates from all regions and sectors of India. A big international delegation of trade unionists from different continents is attending the Congress. The WFTU general secretary, Pambis Kyritsis addressed the AITUC expressing the solidarity of the international class-oriented trade union movement with the struggle of the heroic Indian working class. You can read below the whole WFTU intervention.     WFTU General Secretary Pambis Kyritsis Speech in 42nt National Congress Of AITUC India Dear comrades, First of all, […]

Nurses in the Six Counties who are members of the union Unison have faced freezing conditions to take part in a day of strike action to demand better pay. Strikes have been taking place since just after midnight and have seen nurses, ambulance staff and other health workers walking out and standing with placards in temperatures as low as -4C.   “It was extremely cold, but they were very determined to stand out and speak up” Anne Speed Anne Speed, head of bargaining and representation at Unison Northern Ireland, told Nursing Times thousands of nurses were striking. She said the atmosphere on […]

ICTU submission on Auto-enrolment

The Mandate Trade Union has called on members of the public to respect retail workers during the busy and intense Christmas shopping season. The call coincides with UNI Global Union’s international day of action which seeks to raise awareness about the importance of combatting violence and harassment across the retail sector. Mandate General Secretary, Gerry Light, said that this is an extremely important issue for those working in the various precarious employments across the retail sector. “The last two years have been extremely difficult for everybody but particularly for retail frontline workers, who continuously served their communities throughout the pandemic and […]

‘Keep Water Public’ campaign seeks referendum date Fósa is one of the unions that has formed the coalition behind the ‘Keep Water Public’ campaign. Launched at the end of October, the campaign calls on the Government to confirm a date for a constitutional referendum on the public ownership of water services. The campaign is supported by Fórsa, SIPTU, Unite, Connect and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Speaking at the campaign launch, ICTU president and Fórsa general secretary, Kevin Callinan, said the campaign to name the date for a referendum represented a shared commitment by trade unions to ensure the future of […]

At today’s Irish Congress of Trade Unions Executive committee meeting, Owen Reidy, the outgoing Assistant General Secretary was ratified as the new General Secretary of the Congress following Patricia King, after she stepped down from the post this month. Mr.Reidy, a father of 2 and a native of Donegal has 24 years of full-time experience in the Irish trade union movement. He started his career as a union official in SIPTU in the west of Ireland and occupied a range of roles in the union representing and organising workers in the aviation, insurance, and finance, non-commercial semi-states, and cleaning and […]

From the well-known blog : Notesonthefront.blog Ireland’s High Living Costs We all know that Ireland has a high level of living costs – second highest in the EU.  Irish prices (living costs) are 40 percent above the EU average.  However, comparison with the EU average can be misleading.  High-income countries invariably have higher living costs.  In the graph above all countries in our peer group exceed the EU average.    So the better comparison is with other high-income countries and not the EU base-line.  Nonetheless, bar Denmark, we are well above price levels in those countries – even high-cost Sweden. While there […]

Publication of the Final Report of the LEEF High-Level Working Group on Collective Bargaining 5th October 2022 The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin TD and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD have today announced the publication of the Final Report of the LEEF High-Level Working Group on Collective Bargaining. The High-Level Working Group was formed in March 2021 to review the collective bargaining landscape in Ireland and to make recommendations for improvement.   See conclusions from Page 27:   7. Conclusions The Group considers this report to contain a package of recommendations, which, if implemented in full, will improve […]

The bargaining power of workers has declined strongly in the Euro zone since the 1980s Wage share & trade union density have fallen & profit share has increased The fall in Union density Is inextricably linked to falling wage share & rising profits   TIME TO JOIN A UNION AND AGITATE.