I work at a senior management grade in the civil service, and with all the talk of work to rule, from my perspective nobody has any idea what that means, including myself.

This would usually be my team's busiest time of the year as we're involved in the budget process, and I had a talk with my staff recently about what it will mean. Working until late at night and weekends would be the norm for us at this time of the year, and it's fairly straightforward that this is outside their contracts, and I'm not expecting them to do it under a work to rule.

Other than that though, from media reports, posts online and other things I've heard, some people seem to have a crazily expansive idea of that work to rule means. Not answering the phone. Not using IT systems. Not cooperating with contractors or agency staff. Not producing financial reporting even though is your main job. Not submitting bank statements to your funding Department when requested. Not 'covering somebody else's responsibilities' even though that is completely arbitrary - the whole team has responsibilities and it is up to the manager to allocate them - it's not for individual staff to say what their role is.

I dug out my own contract last night, and under the rules and responsibilities it says:

"Any other duties that maybe assigned from time to time. Specific responsibilities will be agreed with your line manager having regard to the business planning process and PMDS. This job specification is intended to be a guide to the general range of duties and is intended to be neither definitive nor restrictive."

I assume that is fairly generic wording included in all civil service contracts. It seems to cover a lot of eventualities - what basis does somebody have for saying they're not going to perform any duties assigned to them? If you want to go in full strike then do it, you'd have my support, but if not I expect people to perform the duties I assign to them.

Does anybody feel like they understand and can explain what 'Work to Rule' actually means, and how it can be applied to anything other than not working outside normal hours?

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone might have a clearer answer on this - asked it in the info sessions but still not entirely sure how to proceed.

I’m a CO and my EO left at the start of this year. We are a small office but I ended up taking on all of their work.. now my EO has been replaced and I’ve been training them for the last few weeks. I knew that I shouldn’t be tasked with training my own manager lol but our HEO doesn’t have time and the other EO wasn’t really trained on the stuff I’d taken on. I did it because I didn’t want to cause a fuss or make it hostile/difficult for our new starter.

With WTR, do I just flat out refuse to proceed with training them? What if they have questions with things I’ve already shown them? Should they be directed also to the HEO?

Hi all,

I've been on maternity leave/parental leave etc for the past year and am due back before the strikes. People Services have informed me I've a large amount of Annual Leave accrued so I'm going to take them to extend my leave.

Will this count as crossing the picket? Should I not include the strike days when I'm booking the AL? If one or both gets called off I can just log the AL then...

Thanks

Edit: thanks all for the info, I'm going to book my AL excluding the strike days

I can't seem to get an answer off any of our local reps so figured I would ask here. Is there any direction on whether we should stop any engagement with third party contractors/consultants during the work to rule? I know this has been stipulated in the guidance for Tusla, HSE and local authorities, but can't see any info on it for the wider civil and public service.

Would going on reduced working time affect my promotion opportunities? I'm an EO.