Woman heads Irish unions

Patricia King, current vice-president of Ireland’s biggest union SIPTU, has been appointed general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

She takes over from David Begg, who is retiring after 14 years in the post, and is the first woman in the 121 years’ history of the body to hold the top position.

She joins a small number of women across Europe leading their national trade union confederations.

As well as Frances O’Grady at the British TUC, they include the leaders of Italy’s two largest union confederations, Susanna Camusso at CGIL and Annamaria Furlan at CISL; Eva Nordmark, the head of Sweden’s non-manual confederation TCO; and Gerd Kristiansen, head of Norway’s largest union confederation LO.

www.ictuni.org/news/2015/01/22/congress-names-patricia-king-as-general-secretary