Second day of public sector strike announced
SIPTU has today served further notice of strike action on all public sector workplaces for October 21, in addition to the planned stoppage next Wednesday (October 14) in a dispute it says will define wages across the economy.
SIPTU Deputy General Secretary, Adrian Kane, said: “Our strike committees across our membership in the public sector in hospitals, local authorities, educational facilities, fire services, state agencies and many other core services have decided to join a second day of strike action on 21st October.
“The last public service pay agreement expired in June. The Government should have begun negotiations well before it ended. Instead, its failure to act has left public service workers falling further behind as rising prices erode the value of their pay.
“Unions want to enter negotiations. However, we need a guarantee that the value of members’ wages that has already been lost in 2026 will be restored. The Government must also be serious about a pay offer which will adequately address the cost of living pressures for the years covered by any possible agreement. Public service workers deliver the services on which the whole country depends. They deserve fair pay and the people who rely on those services deserve proper investment.
“Nearly 70,000 SIPTU members across the public service will strike on 14th and 21st October. They will have the full support of our more than 90,000 members in the private sector. It is clear that our members’ view is that the cost-of-living crisis is one struggle for all workers. They oppose a Government approach of holding down wages while failing to tackle housing, energy and healthcare costs, which places the burden of the cost of living crisis solely on workers and their families.
“Suppressing public sector wages will give private employers the green light for holding down pay. Our public sector members’ stand strengthens the position of every worker struggling to pay their rent, meet their energy bills and support their family.”
He added: “This dispute is likely to involve more than 400,000 workers and is the most significant in more than a generation. Next Wednesday’s action will be larger than the public service strike in Northern Ireland in 2024 or in the Republic in 2009. The mobilisation is more comparable to the hundreds of thousands of workers across the economy that engaged in work stoppages demanding tax justice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, or even the great conscription strike of 1918.”
SIPTU’s National Executive Council will meet later this month to consider a further escalation of the dispute if progress is not made on public sector wage justice.