CPSU warns over further pay cuts

The union representing lower paid civil servants has warned of industrial action if the government moves to impose further pay…

The union representing lower paid civil servants has warned of industrial action if the government moves to impose further pay cuts on members.

Speaking at the start of its annual conference in Athlone, the general sector of Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) Blair Horan said that the union would not tolerate further wage reductions.

"If they attempt to go down that road we will take industrial action," he said.

The president of the CPSU, Denis Walshe, said that lower paid civil servants, by giving up traditional time off to cash pay cheques in banks, had increased productivity by 50,000 working days per year.

This was equivalent to 1.6 per cent of their salary, he said.

Mr Walshe said the CPSU was the only union which had renounced "hard-earned" terms and conditions as part of the Croke Park process.

He called on the Government to restore original pay levels for CPSU members only. The potential restoration of pay forms part of the Croke Park agreement.

The leader of the trade union representing middle-grade civil servants claimed last night the Croke Park agreement had taken hundreds of millions of euro out of the cost of providing public services.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Public Service Executive Union in Galway, general secretary Tom Geraghty said he fully expected that the review of the deal to be undertaken next month would show that all of the targets set by the International Monetary Fund had been "more than met".

But he warned delegates not to be complacent. He said the original targets for the Croke Park deal had been set out by the previous government in its agreement with the IMF last December.