Local authority craftworkers accept new deal

Craftworkers employed by local authorities and health boards have voted to accept a revised package of proposals to settle their pay dispute. In a ballot, which was counted yesterday, 1,606 workers voted in favour of the deal; 706 voted against it.

The revised deal means that £18.87 of the craftworkers' £25.06 a week increase will be backdated to last July. The remaining £6.19 will be paid from next July. The previous offer, which was defeated by 146 votes, provided for only £12 of the increase to be paid retrospectively. The chairman of the Local Authority and Health Board Craft Group of Unions, Mr Paddy Coughlan, said the workers would now receive £981 each in back pay, £357 more than under the original package. The overall increase will remain at just over £25. The original offer led to one of the most acrimonious splits between a trade union and a large section of its membership in recent years. While union leaders urged acceptance of the deal, workers aggrieved at the staggered nature of the increase and the productivity elements of the deal, organised unofficial strikes in May at hospitals around the country.

After members rejected the last deal in a ballot, official strike action was set for Monday, June 22nd. However, face-to-face talks between the group of unions and employer representatives led to all nine unions recommending revised deal to their members. The Technical Engineering Electrical Union (TEEU) had been unenthusiastic about the original proposals, but backed the revised deal. Dissident members of the TEEU who are still opposed to the deal said before the vote that they believed they could successfully challenge the outcome in the High Court on the grounds that some votes of the craftworkers' mates had been included in the aggregate ballot. They argue that the mates, who receive 80 per cent of any increase awarded to craftworkers, should be balloted with general operatives in SIPTU rather than with the craftworkers.

A spokesman for the group of unions said no legal proceedings had been issued so far. He said that fewer than 100 craftworkers' mates had taken part in the vote, and a legal challenge was unlikely to succeed as there was a majority of 900 workers in favour of the deal.

After the ballot result, Mr Coughlan said productivity elements of the deal would only be implemented "following discussion and agreement at local level with shop stewards and officials". Any disagreement on the implementation of productivity at local level would be referred to the National Review Group, and all parties would still have the right to resort to "the normal industrial relations machinery", Mr Coughlan said.