Siptu members working for the Football Association of Ireland are to mount a public awareness campaign in advance of next month’s international game against England to highlight what they claim is the organisation’s refusal to negotiate with them on pay and conditions.
Staff and union officials have been leafleting at club games to highlight the issue, as part of the “Our Union, Our Team” campaign which they say will come to a head at the Nations League game on Saturday week.
The union said some of the FAI staff, who include regional development officers working in the community to promote the game as well as a portion of the association’s administration team, are earning the same as they did nearly 20 years ago. It said the association is refusing to negotiate a new collective agreement, saying it prefers to deal with employees through an internal staff engagement forum.
The two sides have had talks on the issue at the Workplace Relations Commission but Siptu has accused the association of failing to continue engagement with the State’s industrial relations mechanism in recent months.
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“The staff took big pay cuts after the crash and have barely got back to where they were in the time since, but now find management won’t even sit down with them to talk about pay,” said Siptu official Teresa Hannick.
“When we go to the games, you get a lot of people expressing shock that a largely publicly-funded body, such as the FAI, can refuse workers the simple right to act collectively through their union in negotiations with management.”
She said the staff forum deals with a variety of matters but not pay, which is left to managers to address on a one-to-one basis. Under the system, some employees got no pay increase this year.
“It’s very divisive, a very negative thing to have in any organisation,” said Paul Whelan, the former Bohemians, Shamrock Rovers and Derry City player who now works as a community development officer in Finglas and is one of the Siptu shop stewards at the association.
“I love working in football but it’s frustrating to be earning more or less exactly what I did when I came into the association 17 years ago and for the association to refuse to sit down with us and talk with the staff who want to be represented by a union about that.
“The campaign is basically to make people aware of what’s going on,” he said, “that they won’t negotiate pay and conditions, and they won’t allow us a worker director. It’s just to highlight what we are fighting for.”
The association’s position is that the union does not represent the majority of staff and that many are happy with the existing system. It declined to comment.
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