Community and care sector workers begin strike action to run across three days

Hundreds of Siptu members in the community and care sector are participating in strike action over the next three days in more than 20 organisations in counties Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo and Donegal.

Pickets and protests, part of the Valuing Care, Valuing Community campaign, took place on Wednesday at St Joseph’s Foundation in Charleville in Co Cork and at the Irish Wheelchair Association and Cork EmployAbility in Cork city.

Workers in the community and care sector are on section 39 contracts and are not classified as public servants. They do not benefit from public sector pay deals which their co-workers in the health service receive under their section 38 contracts.

‘Vital services’

Siptu public administration and community division organiser Adrian Kane said the workers were simply seeking pay parity.

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“These workers provide some of our most vital services, caring for the vulnerable and maintaining our communities. Despite this, they have been left in the dire situation of being on the same rate of pay since 2008 with no way of securing a rise, apart from taking the campaign of industrial action on which they have now embarked.

“Most of these workers received pay rises linked to public service agreements until 2008. Since then, the organisations for which they work, which are reliant on government funding, have not received increases to their grants which allow them to maintain this link. We are calling on the Government to engage with the workers’ unions and discuss how we return to a system of linking these vital workers’ pay to movements within public service pay.”

Mr Kane confirmed they had sought a meeting with Taoiseach Michael Martin. “His office then referred us on to the Tánaiste who in turn referred us on to other ministers including the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman. He responded that while he ‘appreciates the tremendous contribution’ made by community and care workers he is powerless to assist because the remuneration of these staff is a matter for the organisations that employ them.”

Mr Kane added that Mr O’Gorman failed to accept it was the Government which has ultimate responsibility because it funds these same organisations.”This pass-the-parcel approach by the Government must end. Workers in community and section 39 are saying ‘enough is enough’. They will be taking to picket lines across the country until they receive a fair pay rise so they and their families can attempt to cope with the worse cost-of-living crisis in a generation.”

Tomorrow [Thurs] workers in Western Care in Mayo, Ability West in Galway and selected community employment schemes in Donegal will be striking. The final group of workers in this wave of action to go on strike will be in Enable Ireland in counties Cork and Kerry on Friday.