Monthly Archives: August 2016

CPSU Circular

085/16 Circular: Paternity Leave

To: Each Branch Secretary – Attention All Members

Dear Colleagues,

The Paternity Leave and Benefit Act 2016 provides for two weeks paid Paternity leave to parents of babies born on or after the 1st of September 2016. The purpose of the leave is to enable the relevant parent to ‘…provide, or assist in the provision of, care to the child or to provide support to the relevant adopting parent or mother of the child, as the case may be, or both.’

Only one person who is a relevant parent in relation to a child shall be entitled to paternity leave in respect of that child.

Paternity leave is available to the ‘relevant parent’ or in the case of adoptions the ‘relevant adopting parent’ between the date of confinement or day of placement, whichever the case may be, up to twenty-six weeks after this date.

Applications for this leave must be made in writing as soon as practicable but, not later than four weeks before the expected date of placement or expected week of confinement of the expectant mother. The Act contains provisions for postponing the leave in circumstances where the date of confinement or placement is changed or in the event of sickness of the relevant parent or the hospitalisation of the child. Otherwise Paternity Leave must be taken in one continuous period of two weeks.

Arrangements for payments of salary while on Paternity Leave are similar to those for Maternity Leave in that the relevant parent will receive normal pay from their employer, and if entitled to Paternity Benefit from the Department of Social Protection, that payment will be made directly to the employer.

Yours sincerely

Theresa Dwyer
Assistant General Secretary

CPSU Circular

084/16 Circular: Recruitment Campaign

To:     Each Branch Secretary, All Members, Executive Committee
National & Advisory Committees

REMINDER

Dear Colleagues

Further to our circular No. 061/16 (attached) issued in June last we are reminding Branch Committees now that the holiday period is over to convene meetings as early as possible in September.

Please contact amurphy@cpsu.ie with dates suitable for your Committee so that an official can be assigned. The meeting will focus solely on re-activating recruitment in Branches where there has been little such activity in recent years.

Yours sincerely

Eoin Ronayne
General Secretary

CPSU Circular

083/16 Circular: Right2Water National March – Dublin 17th September 2016

To:   Each Branch Secretary – Attention All Members
Crc:   083/16
Date: 26th August 2016

Re:   Right2Water National March – Dublin 17th September 2016

Colleagues,

In this centenary year of the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising the need to protect our national utilities and national assets is more important than ever. The campaign has received massive support and success with the election of 97 TD’s who pledged to abolish water charges. The Right2Water (R2W) group of trade unions have called on all supporters of the campaign to show their opposition at the attempt by Government to ignore the will of the majority of the Irish people. The R2W campaign has agreed to organise a mass demonstration of supporters on the 17th of September next in Dublin.

The Demonstration takes place on Saturday, 17th September 2016 where there will be two assembly points – one at Connolly Train Station and the other at Heuston Train Station.

The Demonstration will have three key demands:

  1. That the Government respects the democratic will of the Irish people where two out of every three TD’s elected to the Dail in the 2016 General Election campaigned against the imposition of water charges.
  2. That the Government holds a referendum so that we can enshrine public ownership of our water and sewage system in our Constitution.
  3. That the Government and the EU rejects TTIP and CETA – two international trade agreements that will threaten employment rights, health and safety standards, the environment and our public services, including water.

As a supporter of the campaign the CPSU are asking all members and their families to attend the event. For members coming to Dublin the union will assist branches who organize buses to come to Dublin for the day. As before we can, with the assistance of the branches, organise buses from the major centres of Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford. If you wish to participate and show your support please advise me at the email address below.

Further detailed circulars will issue as we come closer to the date and I would request that this circular is distributed widely to all members in your branch. Email dfagan@cpsu.ie in relation to any of the above.

Yours fraternally
Des Fagan

Financial Secretary

CPSU News Update

013/16 News Update: CSO Salary earnings survey

To: Each Branch Secretary – Attention All Members
Date:   26th August 2016
News Update: 013/16

 Dear Colleague

Please bring this Media Release to the attention of all CPSU members in your area.

MEDIA RELEASE

CPSU criticises over simplistic analysis of CSO Salary earnings surveys

The CPSU which represents lower paid administration workers in the Civil and Public Services today criticised continued over simplified analysis of earnings surveys following the publication by the Central Statistics Office this week of its earnings survey for the first three months of 2016. The union noted that sections of the media have focused, not for the first time, on the difference between ‘average’ weekly earnings in the private and public sectors which it argued “completely fail to re-elect the significant differences in the work profile and the spread of workers on different earnings levels in each of the sectors”.

The CPSU represent almost a 1/3rd of civil servants who start their working life earning €22,565 or €432.45 a week. The midpoint of the Clerical Officer scale after 7 years working is €28,465 or €545.51 a week. This is in marked contrast to CSO figures just released which show that the “average weekly earnings in the public sector” was €905.97 while in the private sector it was €644.98.

CPSU General Secretary, Eoin Ronayne said “it’s infuriating to lower paid public service workers to see media reports and commentary pieces which imply all public service workers earn €900 a week or more”. He added “this is so far from our members’ reality who do not earn the ‘average’ private sector weekly wage let alone the reported ‘average’ public sector wage” and displays “an over simplified approach and possibly an unwillingness to engage in any detailed analysis which is essential if the survey results are to have any real value”

Mr. Ronayne noted the figures also show the ‘average’ IT/Communications weekly earnings in the private sector was €1,063 while for Finance/Insurance sector it was €1,014 a week. He cited today’s Irish Daily Mail piece ‘highlighting’ a 40% premium in weekly earning for public sector workers over the private sector based on the CSO figures as evidence of “this lazy commentary in the media which seeks to demonise public sector workers without any competent analysis of the detail of the CSO figures”

The union supports the ICTU Public Services Committee position that the proposed Public Service Pay Commission must be chaired by an independent public services expert and includes trade union representatives and that any comparison with international public service pay rates takes cost of living factors into account. It has also welcomed the commitment by the Government that any report will not replace collective bargaining between the unions and Government as the employer.

Eoin Ronayne

General Secretary