We all deserve the right to work in dignity and safety, to be paid a decent wage and to be free from discrimination or exploitation. Ireland needs workers across a variety of sectors. People on general employment permits are doing essential jobs like looking after older people, picking, packing and cooking food, driving busses and building houses. They deserve to be treated fairly in this work. 

Ireland currently operates a tiered system which grants more or less rights to workers depending on their job. This means that someone holding a general employment permit such as a carer, chef or agriculture worker, has less rights than someone holding a critical skills permit, such as an engineer or an IT developer. For those on general employment permits it is much more difficult to change employer or sector. As a result, many general employment permit holders face poor terms and conditions and are more at risk of exploitation. 

All essential workers must be treated equally and must be granted the basic rights already afforded to critical skills permit holders. The Employment Permit Equality campaign is calling for general employment permit holders to be granted the right to freely change employers after two years instead of five.  

We are also campaigning for increased flexibility for permit holder’s should they need to change employer within their first 2 years on a permit. 

These changes would enable permit holders to stand up for their rights in work and challenge exploitation and sub-standard conditions. 

This campaign has an active community of over 500 members. A core group of over 25 people meet regularly to make key decisions about the campaign. 

As part of the Employment Permit Bill 2022, which was finally signed into law in June 2024, this campaign has managed to secure the ability for all permit holders to change employer while remaining on their existing permit. A long and courageous battle that was won by hundreds of brave activists in this campaign over many years.  

Another very significant success of this campaign was securing the right to work for spouses of general employment permit holders which is life-changing for many households.  

We are planning to build on recent successes by ramping up our campaign with more actions and events in the near future.