Tomorrow, Tuesday 18^th July 2023, IWU members in the Iceland Ballyfermot store will be going out on strike. This decision was taken due to the ever worsening conditions developing in the Iceland stores and the continued refusal of the company, Metron Stores Ltd., to deal with the IWU, the representative union of Iceland workers.

With Iceland stores closing all over the country, there has been no communication from the company to its workers regarding which stores are next to close. Instead, the company opts only to inform the workers of individual stores of their immediate lay-off on the day of closure. This is creating a situation of unacceptable uncertainty for Iceland workers, leaving them unsure if they will have a job in a week

As security companies rake in super profits from contracts all over the country, the workers have been left behind. Many are on sub-par wages, often even below the low

Following a failure by the Health Service Executive to resolve the matter with the Union, Independent Workers Union members across three HSE Housekeeping grades will be raising complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission regarding the flawed implementation of the Phase IV of the Job Evaluation Scheme for HSE Support Staff.

The members raising these complaints are from across three hospitals:

• Cork University Hospital
• Letterkenny University Hospital
• University Hospital Limerick

The Job Evaluation Scheme, which was re-established in April 2017, was intended to examine the work undertaken by support staff and to determine whether there had been any changes to the size and scope of responsibilities and necessary skills relating to the fulfillment of support staff roles. Phase IV, which covered the housekeeping grades, began in September 2020. However, due to COVID-19 and the cyber-attack on the HSE, the evaluation was not completed until May 2022.

In December 2022, the results of the Evaluation were released. Only six grades out of the grades included in Phase IV were deemed