MID-RANKING civil servants have decisively backed the new Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform.
In the first ballot on the deal to be concluded, members of the Public Service Executive Union have voted in favour of the proposed agreement by a two-to-one margin.
A total of 67 per cent of the union’s members were in favour of the deal, while 33 per cent were against.
About two-thirds of the union’s 10,000 members took part in the ballot.
The union’s general secretary, Tom Geraghty, said last night that there had been a robust debate but members had decided to back the agreement.
The executive committee of the the union had recommended to members that they should vote in favour of the deal.
It is the first of the public service unions to ballot members on the deal reached at the end of March.
A series of other trade unions will announce ballot results over the coming weeks.
The union representing higher civil servants is to announce the result of its ballot tomorrow.
However, on Tuesday, general secretary of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants Dave Thomas said he expected its members to back the proposed public service deal.
He said the deal offered “the best formula for progress under the present economic circumstances”.
“This is the only show in town. The majority, I think, will be voting in favour. The feedback I have got is that the promise of no pay cuts before 2014 is as good as we can get and the mechanism for the reversal of the pay cut is a good proposal on the table, considering the finances of the State. We do not see any alternatives,” he said.
The executive committees of nine public service trade unions, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, the Prison Officers’ Association, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Irish Municipal Public and Civil Trade Union, the Irish Federation of University Teachers, the Civil Public and Services Union, and Unite have come out in opposition to the Croke Park deal. However, balloting has not yet finished in these unions.
The executive committee of Siptu, the country’s largest union, has recommended the deal. The central executive of Impact, which recommended rejection of the deal several weeks ago, will meet again today. It will look again at the deal in the light of clarifications it sought to certain aspects of the proposed agreement.
Public service union leaders last night held talks at the Labour Relations Commission and these will resume today.
The clarifications are being drawn up by chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey.
One area under consideration is the Government’s proposals for public service pension arrangements.