SIPTU members in the security industry have expressed outrage at a decision to defer the implementation of pay increases contained in a new Employment Regulation Order (ERO) for the sector until 1st September, 2021.

SIPTU Organiser, Brendan Carr, said: “Workers in the security industry have already been waiting months for pay increases and other improvements to their conditions which are contained in this ERO. It is deeply troubling that the Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail, Damien English, has deferred the implementation of these improvements for three months from the agreed date of 1st June until 1^st September 2021. This is slap in the face for workers in the industry, many of whom have been on the frontline throughout the pandemic.”

Negotiations to secure a new ERO, which sets minimum pay rates and conditions for workers, began at the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) for the contract security industry in April 2020. Following nine months of negotiations, proposals for an ERO were forwarded to the Labour Court earlier this year.

At a public hearing in January, the Labour Court heard submissions from workers’ representatives and employers in the industry. In making its recommendation, the Court stated that it had taken into consideration concerns raised by employers regarding the impact of Brexit and the global pandemic as well as the disquiet of workers over the deferral of a wage increase for more than eight months. As a result, a compromise date of 1st June 2021 was recommended for the new ERO to come into effect.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Ed Kenny, said: “It is extraordinary that the Minister has ignored both the recommendations of the Labour Court and the JLC concerning the commencement date for this ERO. The Minister has stated that part of the rationale behind the deferral was ‘to ensure that workers and employers have adequate notice of the changes’. This is not a viable reason as workers and employers within the industry have long been aware of the changes and of the scheduled implementation date for this ERO of 1st June.”

He added: “While the increases in pay and the unsociable shift rate contained in the ERO are welcome, it is very regrettable that there is now a further delay on their implementation.”

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), representing 105 million affiliates in 133 countries of the planet, sends a warm internationalist and combative greeting to the workers around the world, on the occasion of this May Day 2021.

All over the world, the class-oriented unions, the militants, commemorate May Day as it deserves it; like workers’ day. As the day that marks the irreconcilable struggle of the workers in each country and throughout the world for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. As the day that illuminates our struggle for a society whose epicenter will be the satisfaction of the needs of the workers and the poor popular strata.

The WFTU is proud of its affiliates and friends all over the world. During the previous period, there was not a single corner of the planet that was not marked by the action of the working class, with the WFTU affiliates being at the forefront of struggle, be it in the pandemic fronts or in the social and class struggles.

Also on this May Day, the WFTU calls upon its affiliates to mobilize, take initiatives and celebrate actions inside and outside the workplaces, with our slogan for this year:

“Hope lies in our struggles”

Satisfaction of the contemporary worker needs

Safe and free vaccines for everyone

In this sense, with a view to the actions of the next period and the preparations for the 18th World Trade Union Congress, we invite you to participate in the militant commemorative act of the WFTU for May Day under the title: “May Day 2021: Hope lies in our struggles ”, which will be held through the ZOOM platform on April 30, 2021, at 17:00 PM (Greek time).

Commemorative act for May Day “Hope lies in our struggles”

https://zoom.us/j/91380491259?pwd=S3BJRGNqMmpIYnAxOVVISUNOTmp6UT09

Meeting ID: 913 8049 1259

Passcode: 284000

We remind you that we are waiting for your photos of the acts and events that you will organize for this May Day with the flags and logos of the WFTU.

Friday 23 April 2021

Mandate Trade Union has condemned the heavy-handed tactics of Gardai last night on Parnell Street, Dublin where ex-Debenhams workers were forcefully removed from picket line at the request of KPMG, the Debenhams liquidator.

Mandate General Secretary Gerry Light said the incident was entirely unnecessary and preventable.

“This incident should never have happened. The workers had decided to ballot for a potential resolution to this dispute at 4:30pm yesterday and then we see these traumatic videos last night where female retail workers, who were treated abysmally by their employer and left without their agreed redundancy packages, are being manhandled and dragged away from their picket line.”

He added, “We need legislation to prevent this from ever happening again, and we need it now. This government have been dwelling on this long enough. We know what needs to change, and they need to change it, immediately.”

Mandate is calling for the immediate implementation of legislation that will protect workers in redundancy situations, ensuring employees are given greater priority on the creditor listing and redundancy agreements are given the force of law.

Wednesday 21 April 2021

Mandate General Secretary Gerry Light has called on the Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Leo Varadkar, to establish a task force looking into the future of retail in Ireland as a matter of urgency following today’s announcement that almost 500 jobs have been lost in Carphone Warehouse.

Mr Light said the government needs to understand that while they’re procrastinating hundreds of jobs are being lost.

“Today there are hundreds of Carphone Warehouse workers wondering how they’re going to pay their bills. Those workers join the long list of workers who have lost their jobs in the last year including Debenhams and Arcadia workers, and yet we have seen very little action in terms of legislation from government,” said Mr Light.

He reiterated the call for the Duffy/Cahill recommendations to be implemented as soon as possible to protect workers in these scenarios.

“Only this week we wrote to Minister Troy and Minister English in relation to the legislation that is desperately needed to protect workers in these situations. We need the two Ministers to put forward their proposals and build on the recommendations contained in Duffy/Cahill before we see more job losses.”

Mr Light said all Mandate members and the wider trade union movement expressed its sympathies with the Carphone Warehouse workers at this difficult time.

Issued : 16 April 2021

No excuse for not establishing a banking forum.

John O’Connell, General Secretary of the Financial Services Union (FSU) has called on Bank of Ireland (BOI) and KBC to publish the memorandum of understanding and to confirm that transfer of understanding legislation (TUPE) will apply to any possible sale of KBC to BOI.

“The announcement this morning that KBC and BOI have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding is a deeply worrying development for staff, customers and communities. The FSU are calling for immediate clarification from BOI and KBC that transfer of understanding legislation will apply to any deal that may be done and that staff will follow the work. Both Banks need to confirm that this is enshrined in the memorandum of understanding.

It is not good enough that once again staff are the last people to be informed about the future of their jobs. This is not the way that change should be managed.  The FSU will be writing to both BOI and KBC to express our dismay at the lack of consultation and to request an urgent meeting to discuss the protection of jobs, the timeframe expected for completion of the discussions and the effects this announcement will have on staff and customers.

The FSU again call for an inclusive debate on the future of Banking in Ireland involving all stakeholders.

It is time for the Minister and the Central Bank to act and establish a banking forum where the voices of all relevant stakeholders can be heard” concluded Mr O’Connell.

ENDS

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS BOOKLET

Date Released: 15 April 2021

SIPTU representatives have today (Thursday, 15th April) written to the Minister of State with responsibility for Social Inclusion in the Department of Social Protection, Joe O’Brien, seeking a firm commitment to support the campaign to halt government plans to privatise community job activation services.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Jane Boushell, said: “The Minister’s contribution to the Social Inclusion Forum this week, his proposal for a solidarity tax and his many public statements about creating greater inclusion in communities by reducing the consistent poverty rate to 2% or less by 2025 are very much welcomed by SIPTU members.

“However, we believe the actions taken by the Minister’s colleagues in government are not consistent with his fine words and plans. The reality is that the Department of Social Protection is currently tendering for the design and commission of a low cost model for delivering community job activation services. This plan would fundamentally alter how these essential services are provided and facilitate a race to the bottom by rewarding the cheapest bidder.”

She added: “The current model has served communities and jobseekers extremely well since its inception in 1995. We believe a change to this model will not improve service levels and do little to enhance overall governance or inclusion. Our members working in these services have a long and proud tradition of building relationships with local employers and tailoring operations to local circumstances and people. We are asking the Minister to listen to the concerns of our members, to reach out to his government colleagues and support our campaign by doing all he can to stop the fire-sale of these essential local community services.”

Let’s win our rights as workers together

On March 30^th the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Leo Varadkar, announced, as he does like to, the setting up of a High-level Working Group under the auspices of the Labour Employer Economic Forum (LEEF) to review collective bargaining and the industrial relations landscape in Ireland. This review body will be chaired by Professor Michael Doherty, of Maynooth University. For those interested Michael delivered an education meeting for the TULF on a critical assessment of ‘social partnership’ during the summer of 2020. A podcast version can be heard here .

What is it the review?

Obviously, this review has been instigated by a right-wing Government and a Minister, in particular,  who is no friend of the working class. The review group will have ICTU involved but will, of course, also have our friends in IBEC. It is clear that Fine Gael will have an agenda to limit and control any developments in the collective organisation of workers. One might suggest, with an EU Directive potentially on the horizon, and also the prevalence of low-pay which impacts consumption and taxation, the Government may be looking to get ahead of developments in order to make only small and limited adjustments. Quite clearly the language of the Minister in launching the review notes the positives of the ‘voluntarist’ system, and so, in some ways predicts a potential outcome already.  The voluntarist system is of course a veto system where employers can, and now more often than not do, just say no and refuse to recognise and collectively bargain with workers unions. Indeed, some employers even go as far as to victimise and penalise workers who merely seek legal entitlements around information and consultation not even trade union recognition.

What do we need to strengthen workers and organised labour?

However, this still represents an opportunity for unions and workers to raise the profile of union recognition and collective bargaining and make demands that will strengthen organised labour in Ireland. And that is what is important in our demands. We need changes to laws and institutions that strengthen the ability of workers to organise collectively and take collective action. We reforms that will help alter the balance of power between labour and capital that will then provide for greater change in the future.

We need to put forward clear demands for the right to organise workers and this means the right to have access to workers in their workplace of work to talk about workplace issues and discuss unionisation. We need legal facilities time for union reps to organise their co-workers. We need, as TULF has championed, changes to strike laws to make strike action easier, quicker, more efficient and change the type of strikes (like solidarity, political, one individuals) that are protected.

The TULF in its Workers Charter has previously called for and we know resurrect this demand:

A Trade Union Bill, in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland, to provide for union recognition, collective bargaining rights, representation on company boards, right to access for union organisers, strong anti-victimisation penalties, solidarity and secondary picketing, and repeal and replacement of the 1990 ROI act and the UK Trade Union Act 2016 where it impacts workers in Northern Ireland

These are the changes that will fundamentally strengthen the industrial position of our class at the point of production, in the workplace. It is from here that we can then build a stronger class and politically champion a free, united, independent and socialist Ireland.

In a more recent article published by Frank Keoghan, published on the TULF website, he echoed these demands:

Trade union officials must have guaranteed access to workplaces and union representatives should have the time and facilities to carry out their duties. Governments must also act firmly to protect trade unionists from discrimination, dismissal and blacklisting. Employers should be prevented from interfering in trade unions’ internal affairs, offering bribes or incentives to non-unionised staff or intimidating workers to stop them joining a union.

What won’t be sufficient?

A review such as this, also presents dangers which we need to be conscious of learning the lessons from ‘social partnership’ years, which we do NOT want to return to. We need to be wary of any changes or processes which centralise control and negotiations away from workers and the workplace. Sectoral or national bargaining without strong workplace structures and unions will actually damage and weaken the trade union movement further and prevent union renewal and growth. We do not want mere wage-setting mechanisms, arbitration of disputes or greater powers of the Labour Court to decide conditions removed from workers. These have the potential to hollow out trade unions even further. The changes we want need to revitalise trade unions in the workplace and empower workers themselves.

Let’s win these rights as workers

Frank Keoghans article went on to emphasise that as workers we must win these demands, wherever they might ultimately be formalised or legislated for:

These struggles are best carried out at national level with international solidarity through union structures such as the global union IndustriALL or the Global Power Trade Union, when appropriate. But in the end, it is down to workers themselves organised in their unions to achieve these objectives. Neither the EU nor our government will deliver.

And that is why we are now calling on ICTU to open-up a consultation process with activists, with organisers in the private sector, with the TULF and campaign groups of grassroots members to win these rights here in Ireland by workers themselves.

We need to take the opportunity of the review to start a campaign for the right of workers to organise and collectively bargain with their employers. And, if a change to the Constitution is needed to legislate for any of this, well then, bring it on and lets mobilise to win it. Workers want change, want power and a voice at work, and want to unionise so let them and support them.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS BOOKLET

Alitalia 11.000 workers are fighting on these days to save their jobs and their family against the landing of the company caused by the final exploitation of the italian market wanted by UE commission and supported by actual italian government.

Alitalia,  main italian airline company with 74 years history, after the privatisation happened in 2008, has been destroyed by bad management and lack of public control. Finally, 4 years ago, the workers unite defeated the last proposal of salary and jobs cuts and Alitalia and sent away private owners (etihad company) and Alitalia went in controlled administration ruled by the state.

After 4 years, durign the worst crisi of world air transportation caused by Covid 19 pandemic, the UE commission is blocking the italian goverment effort to restore Alitalia, as all other european state has regularly done in this period, together with the announced plane for a new public air company to take off.

This situation is putting in danger thousands of jobs and confirm, if necessary, the UE attitude against public investment and his willing to protect economy  position in the continental air market at the expenses of italian workers interests.

The italian government is showing to the workes subjection to UE willing and is actually trying to negotiate a bad agreement that will drive to dismissal and the partition of the company.

Alitalia employee will keep fighting and won’t give up facing the bad UE politics and the weakness of our government.

USB once again strongly demands that the government stop the crazy negotiations with the European Union. A new path must be taken, starting from the protection of employment and a strategic asset for the whole of Italy.

In this struggle, international support will be very apprecciated.

USB

Date Released: 06 April 2021

A major manufacturing company based in county Limerick has been found to have made unlawful deductions from the pay of some of its workers by the Workplace Relations Commission. The case, involving 48 SIPTU members, arose following a cut in wages for workers put on short-time working by the company in 2019.

At the hearing, SIPTU representatives successfully argued under Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 that the workers were entitled to be paid for the period they were on short-time because they had not consented to, nor was there a term and condition in the workers contracts of employment, providing for unpaid short-time.  Despite arguments from management that the unpaid wages being sought were not “properly payable” and that the company had an implied right to place workers on unpaid short-time due to a practice established during the economic crash in 2008, a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Adjudicator found in favour of the workers.

The WRC Adjudicator said: “The obvious purpose behind the provisions of section 5 is to prevent an employer from reducing wages, otherwise payable, without the authority of a statute or a contractual term express or implied within the employee’s contract. There is nothing to suggest that the affected employees had agreed to an open-ended commitment to accept shorter-hours and lesser wages whenever the Respondent chose unilaterally to introduce short-time working.”

The WRC Adjudicator continued: “Where a deduction is made in an employee’s salary it is incumbent on the employer making the deduction to identify the statutory or contractual provision under which that deduction is authorised.”

SIPTU Organiser, Joe Kelly, said: “Clearly, the decision to cut the hours and pay of our members was made by management in 2019 without any prior consultation with union representatives. The majority of SIPTU members impacted by this decision had long service and contracts guaranteeing them a full working week of 39 hours. They felt they were treated with total disregard by management, forced into financial hardship and pressed the union to take the matter further. We now hope that upon receiving this WRC decision that management will accept it as a fair and reasonable outcome and honour the agreed terms of our members contracts across the board. SIPTU representatives expect this WRC ruling to act as a deterrent to any other employers considering a similar course of action.”

SIPTU Worker’s Rights Centre Advocate, Deirdre Canty said: “SIPTU’s Workers Rights Centre has taken numerous claims for our individual membership. However, we also work very closely with the union’s industrial staff to protect the rights of our collective membership regarding workplace legislation. This outcome demonstrates the success what can be achieved for our members by various divisions and departments working together. This is a very significant win for our members and has the potential for a much broader impact across the industry and employment rights in general.”

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS BOOKLET

Wednesday 31 March 2021

Mandate Trade Union today expressed strong criticism of yesterday’s government announcement to scrap the previous vaccine roll-out plans in order to follow an aged-based model similar to the UK.

Mandate General Secretary, Gerry Light, said “The sudden shift from prioritising job categories, including essential workers who have kept society functioning, over now to an age-based roll-out is a serious slap in the face for the many thousands of our members who have continued to serve the public. Those essential retail workers who have bravely attended work and who have been on the frontline continuing to work in public facing jobs since the very start of this pandemic for over a year now will be angry and disappointed at this decision by the government”.

Light continued “Any past recognition by the government of the vital work carried out by our members, who have effectively kept the nation fed and safe, must now regrettably be measured in the context of yesterday’s decision on vaccine roll-out. Yet again, essential front-line workers have been served up more empty promises and empty platitudes from a government who have mishandled this pandemic from day 1. Our members leave home every day with the uncertainty of not knowing whether they will return having picked up this potentially deadly virus. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases they face this extremely high risk to their health and safety for limited financial reward and to what they see clearly as little or no recognition from this government.”

Mr Light concluded by saying “Mandate strongly calls on the government to urgently rethink their strategy for the delivery of the vaccination programme. We also call on those retail employers whose retail businesses remain open to let their voice be publicly heard on this important issue. The priority vaccination of retail workers is not only the right thing to do, it is absolutely necessary to ensure the long term safety of retail workers, retail customers and society in general as well as the long term viability and future sustainability of the Irish retail sector.”