Ireland - Budget to hit low paid workers - December 21, 2010

The government reaction to the latest banking crisis in Ireland is another budget with deep cuts across welfare and other public services. IMPACT union general secretary Shay Cody said that tax rises and cuts in the minimum wage will hit low paid workers in general, while new public sector workers (those taken on despite the recruitment freeze) will be on starting pay 25% lower than two years ago. Moreover, in November the Department of Education and Skills issued a circular to all schools and vocational training centres instructing them to impose pay cuts, averaging 5%, on up to 17,000 low paid staff from 1 January 2011. IMPACT, representing many of these workers, has announced to challenge this pay cut.

English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/393;  http://www.impact.ie/iopen24/budget-2011-education-cuts …;  http://www.impact.ie/iopen24/predictable-budget-recipe …

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.