NIPSA Members – Strike Monday 23 December 2019-Friday 3 January 2020

NIPSA Members – Strike Monday 23 December 2019-Friday 3 January 2020  Published: 19 December 2019 NIPSA members employed in the Mail Opening Unit, Department for Communities, Coleraine and Limavady will be taking strike action commencing at 11 am on Monday 23 December 2019 and will run until Friday 3 January 2020.  Picket lines will be in place each day from 8 am until 2 pm.  Members will welcome the support of other NIPSA members who can call at the picket lines throughout the day.  This will be particularly welcome during the holiday period. The addresses for the picket lines are as follows:- […]

The Dialectic of Sex:

In the workplace as in every facet of society women have and are been descrimated against. It is our job to put a stop this and to understand what needs to be done.  Recently this blogger came across this wonderful piece of writing from Shulasmith Firestone. Please read it. Sex class is so deep as to be invisible. Or it may appear as a superficial inequality, one that can be solved by merely a few reforms, or perhaps by the full integration of women into the labour force. But the reaction of the common man, woman, and child – ‘That? Why you […]

Strike action begins in Six counties

RCN members working within Health and Social Care (HSC) services in Northern Ireland today go on strike for the first time in the College’s 103-year history.  There are currently 2,800 vacant nursing posts in the HSC and nurse pay has fallen by 15% in real terms in recent years. Nurses in Northern Ireland are the lowest paid in the UK. Today (Wednesday), nursing staff will join picket lines at 21 locations across Northern Ireland to demand that measures be taken to address the unsafe staffing levels and deliver pay parity. The strike action follows three days of industrial action, short […]

International Solidarity: Philippines:

Letter to Philippines President Duterte condemning State arrests of trade union leaders 12 Dec 2019 The General Secretary of Congress Patricia King has written to President Duterte of the Philippines condemning the recent raids and arrests of trade union leaders and labour organisations in the Philippines. In her letter, the General Secretary urged the government of the Philippines to stop attacks on legitimate trade union organisations, implement the recommendations concluded by the Committee of Applications of Standards of the ILO in June 2019 and accept the High-Level Tripartite Mission of the ILO to visit the country.  Patricia King said “the ICTU stands in […]

Show Respect for Retail Workers Over the Festive Season

Show Respect for Retail Workers Over the Festive Season Friday 13 December 2019 Mandate Trade Union launched our membership led Respect Retail Workers campaign ten Christmases ago. Once again, we wish to make a renewed appeal to all retail customers to remember to treat workers, at what is the busiest time of the retail year, with courtesy and respect over Christmas 2019. In our most recent online survey we asked Retail workers to provide us with any instances, and more specifically their own personal experiences, in the retail trade of customers verbally abusing them. Mandate received 628 responses from members […]

Human Rights Day 2020

Human Rights Day 2020 10 December is Human Rights Day — marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Workers rights are human rights! Please take a moment to show your support for these active campaigns on LabourStart: Poland: Reinstate sacked union leaders at Castorama South Korea: Protecting safe rates for truck drivers Philippines: Anti-union repression against teacher union Kazakhstan: Trade unionist Erlan Baltabay imprisoned – again! Cambodia: Solidarity with workers at the West Mebun temple

Fórsa wins leave standardisation deal

A number of HSE grades, including environmental health officers, biochemists, and pharmacy and clinical measurement grades, are to get enhanced annual leave arrangements thanks to a deal painstakingly negotiated by Fórsa. The new arrangement will standardise their leave, bringing it in line with other health professional grades. The agreement also aligns the leave of similar voluntary hospital staff, who missed out on an earlier standardisation deal that aligned leave with the HSE. Under a deal brokered by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), the improved leave is to be backdated to 2015 on a “cost neutral” basis in both the HSE […]

Trade Unionism Article

A very interesting article on the role of Trade Unionism   “Trade Unions are the schools of socialism. It is in trade unions that workers educate themselves and become socialists, because under their very eyes the every day struggle with capital is taking place.”—Karl Marx This pamphlet contains some excerpts from the extensive work that Lenin wrote on Trade Unions. It is hoped that they will provide a basis for discussion around the current position and issues of today’s trade union movement.Trade Unions are suffering from the fallout of Thatcherism including anti-trade union laws and the effects associated with partnership […]

Study of Dublin waste services welcomed

Fórsa today (Tuesday) welcomed the allocation of €75,000 to investigate the feasibility of bringing Dublin City Council’s refuse and waste management services back into local authority control. The decision, which is included in the council’s 2020 budget, comes on foot recommendations by a working group on remunicipalisation of the service, which was privatised in 2011. The council will now seek tenders for a research project in partnership with a third level institution. It is expected that the duration of the project will be between a year and 18 months, which means it will report within the lifetime of the existing […]

HSC Ballot on Safe Staffing and Pay Justice

News from NIPSA.   HSC Ballot on Safe Staffing and Pay Justice  Published: 29 November 2019 NIPSA Health Campaign I am pleased to confirm the result of the Industrial Action ballot as follows: Are you prepared to take part in Industrial action consisting of a Strike? YES 90.4% Are you prepared to take part in Industrial Action short of a Strike? YES 96.6% This landslide result is a clear message that NIPSA members are not prepared to continue to work within a Health & Social Care service that has unsafe staffing levels, that puts patients in danger and where they […]