McCreevy splits unions before pay talks begin

At one point yesterday it looked as if the pay talks scheduled for Government Buildings might break down before they even began. The question was raised as to whether there was any point in going ahead in the absence of the State's largest union, SIPTU.

The employers' and farmers' representatives seemed willing to defer discussions until SIPTU had clarified its position.

But the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Peter Cassells, said that he was there to do business and he would be back tomorrow to do business.

There was no lock on the door. If anyone wanted to leave they could do so.

Clearly angry, he added: "There may be a time when I have to take out a cleaver but this is not it." It was not clear on whom he intended using the cleaver.

The decision by SIPTU to pull out of talks came as a bombshell to other unions, including Mandate and the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union, which had voted against entering talks in the first place. A public dispute within Congress is almost unheard of but a clear breakdown in communications took place after the Budget.

No Congress executive meeting had been planned to consider the Budget. This was partly because it was expected that the proposals of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, would be in line with the approach agreed in the National Economic and Social Council report, published last month.

The sheer size of the tax cuts in Mr McCreevy's Budget - £935 million - also allayed fears. As one senior trade union leader put it, "How could anyone be expected to make a dog's dinner out of a Budget that big?"

Some ICTU executive members are understood to have sought a meeting on Wednesday or Thursday, or at least a telephone discussion, to agree a common line on the Budget.

But it never happened. Instead the ICTU gave the package a critical welcome on Wednesday afternoon, although by evening Mr Cassells was giving it only "five out of ten" on Prime Time.

Mr Cassells's reasoning was that Mr McCreevy had delivered one of the ICTU's two main demands - removing the worker on the average industrial wage from the top tax bracket. The other key ICTU demand was a significant increase in the PAYE allowance to help the low paid.

Instead the Budget increased the take-home pay of workers earning less than £14,000 a year by only about 2.2 per cent, while those earning more received increases of between 4.4 per cent and 7.5 per cent.

Mandate, with its large number of low-paid workers, condemned the Budget outright. So did the predominantly blue-collar ATGWU, which is traditionally opposed to national agreements.

Its Irish secretary, Mr Mick O'Reilly, described the Budget as a "slash and burn" measure.

SIPTU's criticism was initially more muted. But by Thursday morning, when the Budget had been analysed in detail, it was accusing Mr McCreevy of "flying in the face" of the priorities identified in the NESC report.

From then on the union's criticisms of the Budget became increasingly hostile, but they received little media coverage.

What coverage there was concentrated on remarks by SIPTU's national equality officer, Ms Rosheen Callender, that some criticism of Budget proposals to individualise tax credits as "anti-woman" or "anti-family" was "over the top."

Ironically, this was characterised as support for Mr McCreevy.

Meanwhile, the feedback from SIPTU's grassroots was ferociously anti-Budget. Its regional organiser for the midlands and south-east, Mr Jack O'Connor, said he was "ate, bate and battered at Cappoquin Chickens" at a meeting to discuss the Budget.

"We weren't served by the Budget and we weren't served by the controversy going on about single versus double-income families," he said. "The reason people were so discerning about this Budget was because they had all been led to believe something substantial would be in it for them. They were quite appalled by the whole thing."

The union's regional secretary for the Dublin private sector, Mr Jack Nash, had a similar experience.

"SIPTU is a broad church," he said. "There is no way it can participate in talks where 40,000 to 50,000 members are relatively worse off after the Budget than they were before."

Normally such things are done through Congress, but changing the direction of the ICTU is akin to turning an oil tanker. It has an executive of 30, and over 60 affiliated unions. The prospects of agreeing a position before Monday's meeting with the other social partners was practically non-existent.

SIPTU president Mr Des Geraghty did try to contact Mr Cassells repeatedly over the weekend, but without success. Eventually, on Sunday evening, another senior ICTU official was contacted.

By then it was 11.05 p.m. and he too failed to reach Mr Cassells, who first heard through the media that SIPTU had decided to pull out of talks.

The situation may, inadvertently, have suited SIPTU and the ICTU. If Mr Geraghty had succeeded in contacting Mr Cassells he would almost certainly have been told that SIPTU could not withdraw from the talks unilaterally. It was a matter for the congress executive.

Events of the past couple of days have certainly exposed gaps in ICTU ranks. But SIPTU's stance may well suit other unions representing the low-paid which are not big enough to chart their own course.

Members of the "third pillar", representing community groups and voluntary organisations, will also welcome SIPTU's move, which has forced the focus of debate on to low pay and social exclusion rather than the more divisive question of bigger tax breaks for two-income couples.

The "third pillar" had threatened to pull out of talks last week over the Budget but such a move would not have prevented those talks going ahead. SIPTU, with 40 per cent of the State's unionised workers, is a different matter.

If the Government cannot provide the sort of commitments SIPTU is seeking, the talks may never reach the next potential breaking point, on actual pay increases. If there is nothing left in the Budget kitty for the low paid, then unions such as SIPTU will be seeking to make up the leeway from employers.