Unions urge repeal of ‘draconian’ financial emergency legislation

Public service trade unions have called on the Government to repeal immediately financial emergency legislation which, they maintain, infringes on the basic rights of State employees.

However the unions also warned that abolition of the financial emergency legislation, known as FEMPI, would not resolve all the issues between public servants and the Government.

The unions warned repeal would need to be followed up with talks about low pay,additional working hours for staff and other disimprovements in terms and conditions which were introduced in recent years.

In a letter sent on Friday, the Public Service Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions urged Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe to use the annual review of the operation of FEMPI later this month to repeal the legislation.

“As you know, FEMPI legislation has resulted in up to three cuts in pay of public servants, enforced by legislation that is grounded in an economic and fiscal ‘emergency,’” the committee wrote. “The legislation is an extraordinary series of attacks, not just on the pay and conditions of Government employees but also on their rights as citizens of our nation to bargain freely with their employer.”

The unions said the Government had an opportunity in the forthcoming annual review of FEMPI “to address this continued draconian legislation and to return the right to public servants to be treated,in law, in their relationship with their employer in thesame fashion as the remainder of our citizens”.

“Obviously, the repeal of this draconian legislation will not resolve all issues between public servants and their employer and would need to be followedup with discussions about issues such as low pay, additional working hours and other disimprovements in conditions that have occurred in recent years,” the letter continues.

“However it would represent a first step, and a vitally important first step,in restoring normality into the relationship between Government and its employees.”