Talks on the dispute in Irish Rail, where industrial action is due to commence on Friday 23rd October continue today.
SIPTU Organiser, Paul Cullen said that despite the marathon all night discussions Irish Rail management has not adequately addressed the issue of past productivity delivered by union members.
An urgent and wide-ranging fire safety audit of properties is needed due to the number of serious breaches discovered in buildings across the country, according to SIPTU firefighters.
SIPTU members working as security guards at the Shell gas terminal in Bellanaboy, county Mayo, conducted a 12-hour work stoppage on Monday, (19th October) in a dispute related to the unilateral implementation of job losses and reduced hours by the security contractor Senaca Group.
The failure of the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, in Budget 2016 to end the preferential VAT rate enjoyed by the hotel and restaurant sector, which includes many businesses exploiting low paid workers has been condemned by SIPTU.
SIPTU members in Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB), on Friday, 2nd October, accepted Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) proposals on a recruitment plan that will see numbers in the service brought up to safe minimum manning levels within an agreed timeframe.
SIPTU has called on the board of management of the Roscommon Leisure Centre to respond to a request for its representatives to attend a meeting of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to discuss a dispute concerning workers’ wages.
This Seminar will examine the implications of the UK’s renegotiation of its EU membership and the impact of a Brexit for the UK, Ireland and Europe. For Ireland, even if the UK retained access to the Single Market the likely consequences are still significant. While overall Irish exports to the UK for goods and services are 16% to 18% of the total respectively, the indigenous sector, which is labour intensive, is 43% and the agri-food sector is over 50%. Currently, non EU countries in the Single Market do not have free trade in agricultural products, and significant tariffs apply. Even if a free trade agreement was possible in agricultural products, costly customs procedures would apply to all trade. There could be gains in areas such as financial services but the overall impact would be negative for jobs particularly in manufacturing. Also there would be major implications for North/South relations if Scotland were to exit the UK following a Brexit.
Presentation by Joe O'Flynn, SIPTU General Secretary to Margaret Fitzpatrick, school bus driver representative on the occasion of her retirement from the National Committee of Representatives in June 2015.
Catherine O Malley, WRC, Annette Carpenter, Organising Department and Karan O'Loughlin, National Campaigns and Equality Organiser - first SIPTU graduates from the ICTU/UCC Diploma in Adult Learning and Development who will be putting their skills to use in the Workers College when it is up and running.
The Bord na Móna Group of Unions has expressed disappointment at the company’s announcement that it is to phase out the harvesting of peat for energy and the lack of consultation with workers concerning the move.
SIPTU members working in the cash-in-transit section of Brinks Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new agreement with management on Friday, 1st October.
The fire that led to the deaths of ten members of the travelling community, including five children, at a halting site was an accident waiting to happen. For decades, travellers in Ireland have been treated like second, or third class, citizens with many hundreds of families forced to live on the side of the road in unhygienic conditions without adequate water, electricity and other basic services.
Budget 2016 contains positive measures that will see workers make the first real financial gains from a budget in almost eight years, according to SIPTU researcher, Ger Gibbons.
The surprise announcement in July of plans to introduce a ‘national living wage’ for workers over 25 in the UK has generated much debate. In effect a higher minimum wage for adult workers, the living wage will initially be set at £7.20 per hour and will be reviewed each year by the Low Pay Commission. The current Conservative government, who are responsible for the policy, have made clear their intention to increase the living wage to £9 per hour by 2020. Although this appears to be high, the living wage would still be less than two-thirds of the median wage in the UK.
The 2015 European Week for Safety and Health at Work, a highlight of the ‘Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress Campaign’, started on 19th October. Events are being held across Europe to mark the occasion and put stress and psychosocial risks in the workplace in the spotlight. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and its network of partners aim to get Europe talking about how we can tackle these risks together.
While the situation in Syria understandably dominates media coverage of the Middle East and domestic tragedies take priority within the national media, there has been a serious escalation in the situation within the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In the past three weeks, 47 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,500 shot with live fire or steel coated rubber bullets by the Israeli military. These include two thirteen years olds, a fifteen year old, a three year old child and a pregnant woman. Documented Acts of violence (beatings, shootings, indiscriminate use of live ammunition) are currently being carried out by the Israeli military and heavily armed groups of settlers against the unarmed citizens of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and are unprecedented in the context of the Palestinian/Israel situation.
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