Monday 3rd December 2010 Union leaders and representatives of 20,000 community workers met in November to discuss a range of issues emerging from the Government’s austerity plans and to plan resistance to budget cuts.
The meeting was attended by community group representatives and union leaders including IMPACT general secretary Shay Cody. The meeting was also attended by SIPTU general president Jack O’Connor, UNITE’s Jimmy Kelly and Congress general secretary David Begg.
The meeting took place because it’s believed that the community and voluntary sector has been identified by the Government as a significant target for further budget cuts.
The Harvey report, published by IMPACT’s Boards & Voluntary Agencies branch in May, has indicated that the sector has already absorbed substantial cuts in 2009 and 2010, leading to a loss of an estimated 5,000 jobs.
Defending Communities
The meeting led to a joint call for the protection of successful community-based programmes including the community employment programme and the full-time jobs initiative.
Defending the vulnerable
Representatives also agreed that the incomes of lone parents and people with disabilities should be ring-fenced from any budgetary cutbacks and in the Government’s proposed four year plan. The group also rejected proposed controversial new programmes that require unemployed people to work for their social welfare payments.
Defending Workers Rights in the Voluntary Sector
The unions resolved to organise in response to the significant wage cuts that have been imposed on community sector workers, which ignore employment contracts and undermine established pay scales and conditions.
The unions will also challenge the continuing refusal of government departments and agencies to honour Labour Court decisions in relation to redundancy terms by restricting them to statutory redundancy only.
This will be achieved by further developing the formal relationship recently agreed with the Department of Finance in relation to resolving current issues in the community sector while a new industrial strategy will be developed to resist any further redundancies and job losses.
