As reported in epsucob@NEWS 05 in March, community employment advisors are campaigning to secure pension rights that should have been provided for them 11 years ago following a decision by the Labour Court. With no action from the government the workers are now planning five days of strike action to increase the pressure on the government to resolve the dispute.
Community employment advisors take further action
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Community employment supervisors take action over pensions
The Forsa and SIPTU public services organised strike action on 18 February involving their members who work as community employment supervisors. These workers are responsible for running schemes to help the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged workers to get into regular employment. In 2009 the Labour Court ruled that they should be provided with a pension scheme but no government has taken action since then. The unions are calling on the government to act swiftly to provide supervisors with pension benefits as hundreds have been forced to retire on only the basic state pension.
Unions take next steps in campaign against forced retirement legislation
The trade union movement has applied for a judicial review of the change in law that effectively allows employers to summarily dismiss workers without reason once they reach pension age. They also want the legislation suspended. Unions reacted angrily to the new law which they argue was inappropriately included in a package of temporary measures to deal with the pandemic. The measure was implemented without any form of social dialogue and the unions have raised this specific concern with the European Commission.
Action planned against pensions cut
The Histadrut trade union organisation is planning to call a strike of teachers, government workers and health employees if the government goes ahead with a plan to cut pension payments. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be affected by the proposed cut of 1.259%. Histadrut has called for a six-month delay but this has not been granted and the union expects that the strike action will go ahead.