GMIT hit by industrial action

Around 70 technical staff at GMIT began industrial action this week in a row over pay with the Department of Education.

The action will continue to escalate over the next fortnight and will effectively see the workers refuse to use any technology or procedures which have been introduced at the college since 2009 – including phones, emails and swipe cards.

As of Tuesday, workers in the college’s Technical Section who are members of SIPTU, are no longer sending, receiving or acting on emails, and are not answering or making any calls.

They have also withdrawn cooperation with software and any new processes (or working practices) introduced since 2009.

Workers were balloted in July and voted in favour of taking both industrial action and strike action, because of the failure to implement a Labour Court (and previously a Workplace Relations Commission) ruling in relation to the failure to implement final 2.5% payment from the Towards 2016 national partnership agreement.

It’s understood the annual 2.5% of salary is owed back to 2008, but cannot be paid by GMIT because the new salary rates were never sanctioned by the Department of Education.

A spokesperson for GMIT did not respond to a request for comment.

Yesterday (Friday) will see members fully withdraw from Agresso, an internal financial software system.

There will be no cooperation with video conferencing, audio visual requirements, Open Day events and they will withdraw from using electronic swipe cards, timetable and module manager, withdraw from support of CAO student transfer, and printing services, and there will be no further cooperation with the Moodle learning platform or processing IT accounts.

There will be non-cooperation with technology introduced since 2009 that is to be used with autumn exams, and non-cooperation with the development of the new €20m STEM  building on the Dublin Road campus.

Next Tuesday, the workers will withdraw support for post graduate degrees, international students and lifelong learning students, and for all new courses introduced this year.

From September 4, there will be protests at the entrance to GMIT and workers will not cooperate with technology introduced since 2009 for the student registration process, or HR management software.

All students return on September 11, and coinciding with this, laboaratories will be closed for preparation for half-an-hour each morning, afternoon and evening, and labs will only be open and closed by technical staff and only operate when either a technician or a lecturer is in attendance.

There will be no support for labs from 1pm to 2pm, and there will be a withdrawal of support for any related technology introduced since 2009.

Last year, industrial action of an almost identical nature was called off after a week when the Dept of Education conceded at the LRC. But the Department reneged on the agreement, and a further Labour Court ruling last February found the workers were entitled to the 2.5%.