Sick pay for all

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), Ireland’s union confederation, has called for all workers to be paid when they are off sick.

Currently, there is no general legal right to sick pay in Ireland and almost half the workforce do not receive it. As a result, as ITCU general secretary, Patricia King points out, “hundreds of thousands of low-paid essential workers … face being financially compelled to keep on working when sick.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the risks this poses in terms of increased infections, and the ICTU wants new legislation to make the right to sick pay universal.