The Pay Issue for Impact Members
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THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS ISSUE 36 • WINTER-SPRING 2017 www.impact.ie THE PAY ISSUE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS IMPACT members can now avail of BOXCLEVER 3IMPACT MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES HOW IT WORKS A telematics device is fitted to your car 3 as part of the policy premium. The device monitors AGED BETWEEN 17 AND 24 YEARS everything from the time of day to type of road, your speed, cornering and quick lateral movements. 3INEXPERIENCED DRIVERS The device is fitted free of charge and is easy to arrange. Data collected creates a profile of your driving behaviour and based on your score, you will 3FULL OR PROVISIONAL LICENCES have options to earn bonus kilometres. SPEED, CORNERING, 3 TIME ACCELERATION/ DAY TYPE GPS/GSM THEFT TRACKING QUICK LATERAL OF DAY DECELERATION OF WEEK MOVEMENTS OF ROAD 3DIRECT DEBIT OPTIONS Find out more on A new and innovative car insurance product tailored to meet your needs. Competitively priced premiums 1800 200 200 based on the amount of kilometres purchased. www.impact.jltonline.ie Friends First House, JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited trading as JLT Ireland, JLT Financial Services, GIS Ireland, Cherrywood Business Park, Charity Insurance, Teacherwise, Childcare Insurance, JLT Online, JLT Trade Credit Insurance, Loughlinstown, Dublin 18, Ireland. JLT Sport is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Registered Office: Cherrywood Business Park, Tel: +353 1 202 6000. Fax: +353 1 237 5200 Loughlinstown, Dublin 18. A member of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc. Registered in Ireland www.jlt.ie No. 21622. VAT No. 0042175W June 2016 271856 Editorial work & life Winter-Spring 2017 The Pay Issue Pay – The Big Picture Work & Life is produced by IMPACT trade union's IN THIS special edition of Work & Life we’re concentrating on the issue of pay. Communications Unit and edited The closing months of 2016 were dominated by a fairly heated discourse on by Niall Shanahan. public sector pay, with a revival of the sometimes lazy and incendiary brand of Front cover: The Pay issue analysis we haven’t seen since the peak of the economic crisis. Image: designed by N. O’Brien. Contact IMPACT at: In our special feature on upcoming pay talks, Bernard Harbor observes that “for Nerney's Court, Dublin 1. all its passion and volume, the November row between unions and Government Phone: 01-817-1500. was essentially about whether and when talks should take place.” Bernard gives Email: [email protected] the background to this year’s pay talks on page 8 and warns that delivering a fair www.impact.ie deal won’t be easy. Making a welcome return to these pages is Tom Healy, director of the Nevin Designed by: Economic Research Institute (NERI). Tom says it’s time to talk about wages. Why? N. O'Brien Design & Print Because there’s a little known secret that needs to be explored, namely that Management Ltd. wages, as measured by real average weekly earnings, have not increased since Phone: 01-864-1920 2008. Find out more on page 44, as Donal Casey picks up this theme in his latest Email: [email protected] cartoon, and debuts his first Donald Trump offering on page 39. Printed by Boylan Print Group. Advertising sales: Lughan Deane has been doing what he likes to do best. Never happier than when Niki O’Brien. he’s digging deep through the research files, in this edition he delivers his findings Phone: 01-864-1920. on pay policy while national secretary Andy Pike looks at the gender pay gap. Unless otherwise stated, the views contained in Work & LIfe do Our guest contributor is Shane Faherty, who writes a compelling account of his not necessarily reflect the policy experiences trying to navigate the world of call centre work following the of IMPACT trade union. completion of his PhD – and the imminent arrival of an addition to the family – Work & Life is printed on while struggling to cope with soaring rent and an uncertain future. environmentally friendly paper, certified by the European Eco Trish Callian finds inspiration in the work of Dress for Success Dublin, which Label. This magazine is 100% promotes the economic independence of women by providing professional attire recyclable. and interview preparation skills. We also take a look at IMPACT’s first training programme specifically designed to encourage and promote women activists. Find out more about INSPIRE on page 14, and read Martina O’Leary’s interview with Health & Welfare divisional chair Maura Cahalan on page 4. All that plus the usual mix of news, the IMPACT photo album, member profiles and stories of activism, along with movies, music, food, gardens and com- Work & Life magazine is a full petitions. participating member of the We hope you enjoy it. Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. In addition to defending the freedom of the press, this scheme offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear in our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie or Niall Shanahan www.presscouncil.ie Editor All suppliers to Work & Life recognise ICTU-affiliated trade unions. WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 1 In this issue Campaigns Secure rents work & life THE PAY ISSUE The Secure Rents campaign was launched in October 2016 by Winter-Spring 2017 IMPACT PEOPLE ..............................................................4 IMPACT, SIPTU, Mandate, the Communications Workers Union Maura Cahalan (CWU) and UNITE, in partnership with the campaigning organisation UPLIFT. Our coll eagues in the CPSU and the PAY POLICY CONCEPTS ..................................................6 Financial Services Union (FSU) have since joined the PEOPLE campaign. 4 The campaign was developed in response to the skyrocketing ALL EYES ON PAY ............................................................8 levels of rent increases which were making affordability an by Bernard Harbor issue for huge numbers of tenants. 750,000 people live in WORK Ireland’s chaotic and under-regulated rental sector. l To improve tenant security by revoking the automatic right of landlords to evict tenants purely for the purposes of sale 22 RIGHTS AT WORK ..........................................................12 In the absence of market intervention and regulation, property Pay and gender firm Savills have projected further rental increases of around l To enable tenants to negotiate long-term lease arrangements 25% over the next two years. This follows the revelation, in the by moving from the current four-year maximum lease term. TAKING INSPIRATION....................................................14 most recent Daft.ie report that annual rental inflation of 11.7% These demands echo the recommendations of the Cross-Party is running at its highest level since records commenced in Inspired training for women activists Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness as well as 1993. PAY the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), with support TRADE UNION ACTIVISM ..............................................16 Many people involved in the campaign, and their families, are from homeless charities, NGOs and other representative bodies. 8 Dublin Trades Council president Pat Bolger private rental tenants. The current rate of rent inflation is hitting Nearly 8,000 supporters have signed the petition at Secure - their living standards, and crippling family budgets and dis- Rents.com, which includes a rent calculator tool to highlight the FASHION ......................................................................18 posable income. scale of the rental crisis. Hundreds of renters have told their FOOD Dress for success Measures to cap rental increases in some areas, tabled by the story directly to the Minister via our website. 26 Minister for Housing last December, are welcome, but they Our lobbying efforts continue into 2017, so please lend your THE SOCIAL NETWORK..................................................20 don’t go far enough. support via SecureRents.com as we continue the campaign to IMPACT social media stories Our campaign has three clear policy demands: achieve rent certainty and more secure tenancies. CALL CENTRE GRIND ....................................................22 l To provide stability and certainty for tenants by linking rent Joe O’Connor INSPIRE Guest writer Shane Faherty increases to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Lead organiser, IMPACT. 14 INTERNATIONAL............................................................25 Letter from Colombia GARDENS FOOD ............................................................................26 28 Low, slow pot cooking by Daniel Devery GARDENS ....................................................................28 The heralds of springtime PROFILE MOVIES..........................................................................30 16 Morgan O’Brien checks out Tinseltown’s pay gap MUSIC ..........................................................................32 MOVIES Raymond Connolly on the best and worst of live music 30 TRAVEL ..........................................................................34 Flouncing around Florence BOOKS ..........................................................................36 Trish Callinan discovers a literary revolution in FASHION Dublin’s northside 18 UNION NEWS ................................................................38 MUSIC IMPACT PHOTO ALBUM ................................................40 32 People, places and events THE PAY ISSUE ............................................................44