{"id":666985,"date":"2026-09-01T13:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/666985\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T13:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:54:09","slug":"tens-of-thousands-of-public-sector-workers-have-voted-for-industrial-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/666985\/","title":{"rendered":"Tens of thousands of public sector workers have voted for industrial action"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONDAY SAW AN overwhelming majority of members at trade union Siptu vote for industrial action<\/a>, and they may yet be followed by more public service workers in F\u00f3rsa later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

So, why are Ireland\u2019s major unions and their tens of thousands of members planning industrial action?<\/p>\n

The anger centres around stalled attempts to secure a new pay deal for approximately\u00a0400,000 public sector workers against the backdrop of cost-of-living pressures.<\/p>\n

It also partly stems from a new battleground that is emerging around outsourcing caused by the use of AI at work.<\/p>\n

Temperatures have also been rising among trade union leaders<\/a> because the pay talks have come on foot of huge government supports for specific sectors: the \u20ac510 million fuel supports package following this year\u2019s protests by farmers, agricultural contractors and hauliers.<\/p>\n

There was also the similarly priced VAT cut for the hospitality sector, which took effect in July.<\/p>\n

For Siptu, it said its vote for industrial action came as it continues to seek proposals on pay for members, as well as guarantees against outsourcing caused by the rise of AI.\n<\/p>\n

Why is this happening now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The purpose of these negotiations<\/a> with government is to create multi-year deals to plan ahead in future budgets and avoid annual negotiations with unions for all workers in the public service.<\/p>\n

This includes those who are garda\u00ed, teachers, nurses, prison officers and carers down to administrative workers and civil servants working in the healthcare system and other government agencies.<\/p>\n

The majority are represented by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), a collective body representing 44 different unions and over 800,000 workers.<\/p>\n

The previous public service agreement expired in June.<\/p>\n

That agreement covered more than 80,000 Siptu members and provided for general pay increases of 9.25%, along with a 1% local bargaining fund.<\/p>\n

However, Siptu deputy general secretary Adrian Kane accused the government of having \u201csat on its hands\u201d since the past agreement expired in June.<\/p>\n

He claimed that the government has \u201cfailed to engage meaningfully\u201d to negotiate a successor agreement.<\/p>\n

The 98% of Siptu members who voted on Monday in favour of industrial action, Kane said, reflected the \u201cdeep and utter frustration\u201d among members at the government\u2019s failure to present workers\u2019 representatives with proposals on pay and AI.<\/p>\n

Another ballot also saw 97% back strike action, if initial industrial actions don\u2019t secure progress.<\/p>\n

Emerging battleground around AI<\/strong><\/p>\n

Concerns over AI\u2019s influence in the workplace were raised by Siptu on Monday, as it has argued that workers should be consulted before any AI systems are implemented.<\/p>\n

Siptu contends that this is because AI can affect recruitment, staffing, rosters, workloads and performance reviews, as well as access to services or employment conditions.<\/p>\n

In his comments following Monday\u2019s vote, Kane said that the growing use of artificial intelligence in the public service \u201cshould concern every worker and everyone\u201d who depends on public services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot allow management by algorithm to replace human judgement, collective bargaining or proper accountability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As well as calls for full transparency and robust safeguards concerning how AI systems operate, Siptu also wants guarantees around \u201cwho remains accountable\u201d when an automated system makes a mistake.<\/p>\n

Is the government concerned?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sources in the government view the strike threats as part of the dance around pay talks, and so far don\u2019t believe they will carry over into a winter of discontent.<\/p>\n

Previously, there was also pushback to the claims by union chiefs that the fuel support package was for one sector only, as that intervention was a universal measure designed to ease the cost of petrol and diesel across the economy.<\/p>\n

But these talks are likely to see the rhetoric dialled up further before a resolution can be found between Finance Minister Simon Harris and the unions.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s vote by F\u00f3rsa, which represents 100,000 workers, is likely to add momentum to the dispute.<\/p>\n

With reporting by Christina Finn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONDAY SAW AN overwhelming majority of members at trade union Siptu vote for industrial action, and they may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,13265,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,243515,11043,77355,281664,31825,7,8,32509],"class_list":["post-666985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-forsa","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-pay-talks","tag-public-sector","tag-public-sector-pay","tag-public-sector-pay-deal","tag-siptu","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-trade-unions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117196126216432923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}