Concessions made to unions in revised Croke Park deal

The revised Croke Park II proposals , as widely expected, contain a number of significant concessions made by the Government in a bid to secure the backing of public service staff.

The new document, which is officially titled the Haddington Road Agreement after the location of the Labour Relations Commission where it was negotiated, is much softer in a number of key areas than the original proposals rejected by unions last month.

Changes include greater certainty on the restoration of existing pay levels for higher earners in the future, the payment of some increments which were to be frozen, and the retention of double-time premium rates for frontline staff for working on a Sunday.

Sacking procedure
There are also revisions in relation to redeployment, work-sharing and flexitime working arrangements, while references to potentially sacking workers for consistent under-performance have been dropped.

However, for the Government, core elements of original plans for reducing the public service pay bill such as pay cuts for those earning more than €65,000 and the introduction of a longer working week, particularly for nurses, have been retained.

The biggest structural change in the revised blueprint is that it is, in effect, a series of bilateral plans agreed in principle with unions representing staff in different parts of the public service.

This means that, on this occasion, each individual union will have to decide for itself whether to accept or reject the proposals. There will be no overall decision made by the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions based on an aggregate outcome of individual union ballots.

In addition, the original Croke Park agreement will also survive, with its provisions for no compulsory redundancies and binding mechanisms for dealing with disputes.

A key change in the revised proposals, particularly for low -paid workers, is that the Government has given a commitment to review all public service pay cuts when economic circumstances allow, and to give priority in this to staff earning €35,000 or less. A similar measure was contained in the original Croke Park I deal but was not set out in the Croke Park II proposals which were rejected last month.

The same level of pay cuts, starting at 5.5 per cent, will apply as in the original Croke Park II proposals for those earning more than €65,000.

However, for those earning between €65,000 and €100,000, the original level of pay will be restored in two phases, the first coming into effect nine months after the ending of the proposed agreement – scheduled to be July 2016 – and the second a further nine months later.

Plans to freeze incremental pay increases for those earning between €65,000 and €100,000, which were set out in the original Croke Park II proposals, have been dropped. Instead, two six-month pauses in the payment of increments will apply.

First hour of overtime
Proposals in the original Croke Park II document that staff who currently work a 39-hour week would have to work unpaid the first hour of any overtime carried out have been amended. The requirement to work the first hour of overtime unpaid will only apply until March 31st next.

The proposals also contain changes to the provisions for redeployment of staff. Where the previous proposals said staff could be redeployed up to 45km from the existing headquarters or staff member’s home address, “whichever is nearer to the new location”, the revised document states that “the guideline redeployment distance will continue to be 45km from the current work location or of the home address, whichever is the shorter commute”.

Performance management
The new proposals have softened the provision for dealing with performance management of staff and it no longer contains specific reference to the potential for sacking personnel.

The revised document says that “agreed procedures for managing instances of consistent performance issues will be actively pursued”.

The original proposals contained the provision that where “agreed procedures for managing instances of consistent performance issues have been exhausted, dismissal from the public service will be actively pursued”.