.
MEMBERS of the Fórsa trade union at IT Tralee and institutes of technology around the country, will take industrial action from this Monday.
A ballot for industrial action in July returned a vote of 85% of members backing industrial action, with the aim of securing a comprehensive job evaluation exercise.
Fórsa has served notice to individual Institutes of Technology that, from next Monday (October 15) members will not engage in any form of communication including making and taking phone calls, video conferencing, or responding to or forwarding emails.
Continued below…
.
This follows more than three years of efforts to ensure the implementation of the commitment agreed in May 2015, as part of the negotiations that lead to the Lansdowne Road Agreement, in relation to job evaluation for library, clerical, administrative and support grades.
The trade union represents administrative and library staff (Grades III to VII) as well as analogous grades, mainly in the student services area. The action will be continuous until the issue is resolved.
In a letter of notice to the colleges, Fórsa official Stella Griffin said, “After three years of raising the issue – and alerting the Minister to the inevitable consequences of a failure to deliver on the commitment made – we appear to have little choice but to resort to such action.
“We have exercised enormous patience while trying to reach agreement with employers on an approach to deliver on the commitment. The response to date has been woefully inadequate.
“We believe that we have no other choice but to resort to industrial action following receipt of a mandate for action up to and including strike action from our members,” she said.
