SIPTU has called on members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport to question the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) over its continued failure to recognise the Union for collective bargaining with staff when it appears before the committee today (Wednesday, 30th September).
SIPTU Deputy General Secretary Greg Ennis said the issue must be examined alongside the committee’s questions about governance, public funding and the FAI’s handling of the Ireland–Israel fixtures.
Ennis said: “The FAI receives substantial public funding, yet the workers who deliver football programmes and keep the organisation running are still fighting for the right to negotiate their pay and conditions collectively through their Union. That is unacceptable, and it is a question of governance the committee should put directly to FAI management.
“The contrast with the events of recent days is striking. The FAI proceeded with the Israel fixture, and the players found themselves having to vote on whether they would take the field. Staff elsewhere in the organisation have been asking for years for their collective voice to be heard on decisions affecting their own working lives.
“The players should never have been left carrying the weight of that decision. Nor should the FAI’s other workers have to campaign indefinitely for management to sit down with the union they have chosen.”
SIPTU members in the FAI have campaigned for collective bargaining, fair pay and a worker representative on the organisation’s board through their Our Union, Our Team campaign.
Ennis added: “If the FAI wants to speak about safeguarding football and improving its governance, it must also explain how it treats its workforce. The Committee should ask when the FAI will enter meaningful collective bargaining with SIPTU and give staff a voice in the decisions that affect them.
“Public funding brings public accountability. The FAI cannot ask the State and the football community to support its plans while continuing to deny its own workers collective bargaining rights.”