Ireland
In its continuing campaign to secure fair pay for health and social care staff, the SIPTU trade union will be balloting members who work for so-called Section 39 organisations for strike action. As reported in epsucob@NEWS 20 in November, these are organisations that receive government funding but where workers have been denied the pay restoration measures applied to directly employed public sector staff. Around 10000 workers are affected.
The Fórsa trade union is planning to ballot its members in non-profit health and social care over a proposal for indefinite strike action. Along with other unions, SIPTU and INMO, Fórsa has been involved in a long-running campaign to secure pay increases for workers in the sector where pay has fallen behind public sector pay. Despite several years of targeted industrial action the government has failed to address the problem and the unions argue that this is unfair as many workers in the sector are doing the same work and delivering the same services as in the public sector. They also warn
Public services union UNISON in Scotland is to ballot its members who work as civilian staff for the police over industrial action. The union says that its member have three major concerns which the employers have failed to recognise. The first involves the planned closure of contact command and control centres, with over 300 jobs at risk. The second is the reduction of redundancy terms from 1 April and the third is the employers' decision to restrict leave for over 1700 staff over the summer during the Commonwealth Games sporting event. The union has been trying to discuss these issues with
The SIPTU trade union is balloting ambulance staff over industrial action in response to the failure of the Health Services Executive to implement a plan to restructure the service and pay system. The union was involved in negotiations with the National Ambulance Service over several months, agreeing a proposal that would deliver new job descriptions, pay grades and upskilling of staff. SIPTU is challenging the argument that the service level changes can be delivered but apparently not the improvements to workers’ pay and conditions. The ballot runs until 4 May.
