THE CENTRAL executive committee of the country’s largest public sector union, Impact, will meet today to consider its next step after members voted overwhelmingly to strike in the event of the Government introducing further pay cuts.
In a ballot result announced yesterday, Impact said 86 per cent of members had voted in favour of industrial action.
The union’s general secretary, Peter McLoone, said the Government had refused to consider alternatives to a second cut in public service pay in just 18 months.
“This ballot represents a massive shift in opinion among public servants since the imposition of the so-called pension levy last march.
“Every public servant has already suffered a 7.5 per cent pay cut this year, yet the Government is clearly determined to come back again and again to slash their family incomes,” he said.
“Our members don’t want strikes or the disruption they will bring, but the Government’s refusal to consider alternatives mean strikes now seem inevitable as public servants seek to defend what they have left,” he said.
Mr McLoone said the Government had not responded to an initiative put forward by Impact as an alternative to pay cuts which would have involved “a massive transformation of public services to do much more with less money”.
Impact represents about 55,000 staff in the health, local authority and education sectors as well as in the Civil Service and non-commercial semi-State organisations.
About 69 per cent of Impact members took part in the ballot on industrial action.
The ballot result provides the union with a mandate for strike action in the event of the Government or individual public service employers moving to impose compulsory redundancies, unilateral cuts in working hours, further pay cuts or reductions in pension entitlements.
Last March, Impact was unable to take part in a planned day of demonstrations organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions as it was backed by an insufficient number of members under the union’s rules.