Council water staff to down tools for one-day protest on December 15

A nationwide stoppage to protest plans to transfer council staff to Irish Water won't disrupt hospitals and other essential services, the Cork representative of the protesting group says.

Care homes, hospitals and other essential services will not be impacted when Cork city and county council water workers down tools for a one-day protest work stoppage on December 15, their spokesperson has told Tripe + Drisheen.

The Cork protest is part of a nationwide work stoppage protesting the imminent transfer of local authority water workers to Irish Water under terms of a Framework Document for the Future Delivery of Water Services negotiated between the government, four unions and Irish Water. This transfer of staff is set to begin in January 2023.

“If there’s an emergency we will go out to it,” John Mullins, Cork spokesperson for a national group calling themselves the Water Services Workers of Ireland (WSWI), said as he announced the planned work stoppage.

“If CUH or the Mercy Hospital or a Nursing Home is in need of help, common sense will prevail,” he said.

More frequent disruption of services

“This is a warning shot across the government’s bows that if they don’t listen, this will start to happen more frequently. We have fellas up the country saying we should be turning off the pumping stations, or that we should target big industry.”

“We’re putting the government, the trade unions and Irish Water under pressure to sit down at the table with us and address our concerns.”

John said he expects the majority of Cork City Council´s 26 water staff will participate in the work stoppage, despite SIPTU saying that the group was a “very small minority” of water workers.

What are the issues?

In what Irish Water describes as “the next phase in the transformation of the water sector in Ireland,” from January 2023, local authority water services staff can decide to voluntarily transfer to Irish Water employment and will be eligible for a one-off €3,000 taxable payment to do so.

This is a phased process under which all water services will be provided by Irish Water by 2026.

After the three-year period is up, any staff that want to stay in the employment of the local authority will have to transfer to another department.

However, Irish Water workers will not be classed as public sector workers and John and his fellow WSWI members are worried that they will lose their public sector allowances and job security if they move to Irish Water, and don’t believe they can legally retain allowances if transferred to other departments within local authorities.

Despite promises made by government in union negotiations, it won´t be legal for former water services workers to work in a new local authority division with their pre-existing allowances, alongside other council staff with different pay arrangements, John believes.

Privatisation fears

They also believe that the consolidation of water workers under Irish Water is “laying the groundwork for privatisation” and preparing to make Irish Water a saleable utility, John said.

“The water charges issue was the biggest issue of the day and the government eventually had to back down because of the size of the protests,” he said. “I honestly think that people feel that the government is not going to revisit this, but we as workers can see it happening: it’s water charges through the back door.”

Union role

Unions SIPTU, UNITE, FORSA and CONNECT represented the country’s 3,000 local authority water services staff in negotiations with government and Irish Water.

However, John said SIPTU promised a ballot that was never delivered and he doesn’t have confidence that the terms negotiated by the unions will adequately protect either workers´conditions, or the utility from eventual sale.

WSWI have protested outside SIPTU and UNITE offices in Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Dublin in response.

“We honestly believed our biggest fight would be with the government and with Irish Water. It turns out the biggest fight is with our own union,” he told Tripe + Drisheen.

John, himself a SIPTU shop steward, rejected SIPTU claims that the breakaway WSWI group was in the minority and that most water workers in the country were happy with what the unions have negotiated. “We have nearly 500 members on our WhatsApp group and I estimate that 80% of the water workers support us,” John said.

SIPTU response

An initial plan to ballot members on the deal was abandoned because “the majority” of feedback from members at local committee meetings was that workers were happy with negotiations, SIPTU Local Authority sector organiser Brendan O´Brien told Tripe + Drisheen.

“When members were asked, the overwhelming view was that we’ve achieved what set out to negotiate for and that it should be up to the individual,” Brendan said.

There has been “lots of misunderstanding” relating to the negotiations and their outcomes, he said.

“There will be no forced transfers, workers will retain their working conditions and will have time to make the choice.”

“We’re aware that some members are upset, but this decision was taken by the government. We have negotiated protections for our members within the framework and they have until 2026 to make their decision.”

Brendan said SIPTU was opposed to the privatisation of Irish Water and that they want the government to deliver on the pledge to keep Irish Water as a state agency and live up to a 2020 Programme for Government promise to hold a referendum on the future of water ownership.

Government must now “issue a date for a referendum early in the New Year,” Brendan said.