CPSU ANNUAL CONFERENCE:LOWER-PAID civil servants have called on their union to seek increases of 27 per cent in forthcoming pay talks with the Government.
Delegates at the annual conference of the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) in Kilkenny yesterday passed a motion seeking rises of €150 per week or 27 per cent in light of the recent benchmarking report which recommended no special increases and significant salary hikes awarded recently to top-level grades.
CPSU general secretary Blair Horan said the ease at which senior grades had awarded themselves massive increases as well as general problems with inflation had meant that members no longer thought in terms of low rises. "The mindset has moved back to the 1970s," he said.
Delegates rejected the concept of benchmarking for determining public sector pay in future and urged that a new mechanism be introduced.
The conference also strongly condemned the recent increase of €38,000 per year for the Taoiseach on foot of the recommendation of the review body on higher-level pay.
The proposal to seek a 27 per cent pay increase was put forward by the Meath branch of the CPSU and now becomes the policy of the union.
Anne Bolger, of the Meath branch, said that the recent review body report for senior grades and the benchmarking recommendations for all others had "widened the gap" between the top and the bottom levels. She said CPSU members were being left behind.
Terry Kelleher said the argument was being put forward that staff should not seek increases as this would mean a loss of competitiveness. However, he said the main threat was coming from inflation which was being driven by outside factors such as oil and government policy.
He said that in addition to higher prices for food and energy, lower-paid civil servants were also facing new taxes on homes such as estate management fees. He said that in one estate in Tallaght, Dublin, the annual management charge was now €3,000. Delegates at the conference strongly criticised the recent zero per cent award recommended by the benchmarking body.
Denis Keane, of the Revenue branch, said the union should ensure that "benchmarking was dead and would not come back again".
Mr Horan said the CPSU was not in favour of benchmarking as a system for determining pay and never had been. He said benchmarking "had imported private sector wage differentials into the public sector".
He said if members wanted to ballot on industrial action over benchmarking, the union would do it and that it would have the full support of head office.
The conference passed a motion asking the union's executive to ensure that another formula was found to replace benchmarking "that will deliver the type of increases necessary to ensure that members' take-home pay is protected and improved".
Delegates also condemned what was described as "exorbitant" increases for the Taoiseach and other Ministers which were accepted by the Cabinet last autumn, although deferred for a year.
Mark Cawley, from Sligo, said the level of increases awarded - up to €38,000 - were more than clerical officers could attain in their yearly salary.
The CPSU represents about 12,000 members in the Civil Service as well as in a number of other areas such as Eircom and An Post.
Members of the CPSU largely work in the clerical area and are the lowest-paid personnel in the Civil Service.