Union threatens strike ballots over any pay cuts at HSE-funded agencies

IMPACT trade union is to hold industrial action ballots in any community and voluntary sector workplace where an attempt is made to unilaterally cut their pay and conditions.

The public sector union has made the threat on behalf of hundreds of its members in organisations such as disability charity Enable Ireland and children’s charity Barnardos.

The Health Service Executive-funded agencies should have been exempted from the public service pay cuts because, as Tánaiste Mary Coughlan pointed out, the grant-aided agencies funded under section 39 of the Health Act 2004 are not directly affected by pay adjustments provided for under the financial emergency measures. Therefore, as they are not public service bodies as defined in that act, their employees are not public servants.