Health

Healthcare staff with voluntary bodies still await pay increases agreed in October

Allegation made of ongoing attempt to minimise number of people who benefit from deal and any future restoration of pay link with equivalent public sector staff

Irish Wheelchair Association staff staging a 24-hour work stoppage. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Emmet Malone
Mon Apr 1 2024 - 18:00

Thousands of healthcare staff working for voluntary organisations and charities funded by Tusla and the HSE are still waiting for pay increases agreed as part of a last-minute deal to avert a strike in the sector back in October.

About 5,000 staff at 17 of the organisations providing support to people with disabilities or with other needs had been due to strike in October, before the deal was struck at the last minute. In addition to the specified pay increases, commitments were given regarding further talks on restoring the link with public sector pay.

The workers were promised increases of 8 per cent, to be paid in three phases, with the first 3 per cent backdated to April of last year. However, most are still waiting for large portions of the money and many have received nothing at all, organisations operating in the sector said.

“Before Christmas there was a calculation done by Tusla and they made a payment to all of their grantees based on a calculation of a proportion of that what they estimated was due,” said Maria Quinn of the Coalition of Tusla Funded Grantees, a group that includes Bernarndos, Extern and the ISPCC.

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“Some organisations went ahead after that and made a payment to staff. Others haven’t done that because they’ve got boards that are concerned about the wider funding and are looking for greater reassurances... most of us have not felt that we are in a position to meet payments to staff.”

[ Unions and voluntary organisations seek clarity on funding for agreed pay increases ]

The staff were due a further 2 per cent from November, with the final 3 per cent due in March, but only the very first tranche has been passed on to staff. “That’s if they are receiving anything,” said Ms Quinn.

The situation is described as “chaotic” across the whole sector, with some individual staff members or even entire organisations reportedly told they are ineligible because funding for particular roles comes from departments which were not covered by the agreement, or that the particular structure of contracts means the deal does not apply to them. Employers also say no account has been taken of additional employer costs such as PRSI or pensions.

One senior union official accused a number of those on the Government side responsible for implementing the deal as seeking to “reimagine” what was agreed at the Workplace Relations Commission.

“The night we agreed the deal, the Government side were saying it would apply to in excess of 2,000 organisations,” said Kevin Figgis, senior health sector organiser at Siptu. “They are now saying they are engaging with a little over 1,000 agencies and we are going: ‘What’s happened to the rest of them?’

“And what we have now is people who weren’t even in the room that night telling us what was intended, which is unacceptable. We are not going to have the deal reimagined by people who weren’t even there when it was agreed.”

There is an ongoing attempt, he argued, to minimise the number of people who benefit from the deal and any future restoration of the pay link with equivalent public sector staff, a key goal for unions and employers.

Stacey Lyons of the National Voluntary Drug and Alcohol Sector said many smaller organisations also feel they have been pushed to the back of the queue for payment.

“It looks like they are being left to the last stage of the payouts,” she said. “They just seem to have been left in limbo.

“We completely understand that this is hugely complex and was never going to happen overnight, but it has caused a lot of issues. We have members who are bigger organisations who have been able to make some payouts, but there are others that wouldn’t be sure they can pay next month’s wages, never mind the increases.”

The HSE was approached for comment. The Department of Children, which led the Government side in the deal negotiations, said: “Appropriate administrative arrangements are being developed by the HSE and Tusla to ensure this additional funding for pay is made available to section 39 and section 56 organisations, to meet the requirements of the WRC agreement.

“The department’s aim is to ensure the increased funding is made available as efficiently as possible to the employer organisations, while also providing for appropriate accountability and controls to be put in place.

“It is, however, acknowledged that it may take some time for the funding increases to be allocated to eligible organisations due to the need to meet standard financial governance and accounting requirements.”

Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone

Emmet Malone is Work Correspondent at The Irish Times

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