ANALYSIS:Traditionally the unions wanted increased pay in return for reform. Now the Government is threatening further pay cuts if reform stalls
WHEN LOWER-PAID civil servants, who are members of the CPSU, meet at a special conference today to determine strategy in the fight against pay cuts, it will be the first opportunity to assess, publicly, the mood of the staff on the ground and the lengths they are prepared to go in the current row.
Since the budget, unions have said that their members are furious at the cut in pay and yesterday Siptu’s Jack O’Connor appeared to suggest that his rank and file were complaining that he had been too soft.
However, the CPSU conference and a subsequent ballot that is expected to be held should give an insight into the thinking of ordinary members on the ground.
In the first phase of industrial action, unions have put in place an effective work-to-rule and have said that they will not co-operate with any transformation or reform plans proposed by management.
There has also been some low-level action including the closure of public offices, such as the Passport Office and a number of social welfare facilities, at lunchtime.
However, the unions have not ruled out intensifying the action – probably to involve strike action in selected areas – as part of a second phase of this overall campaign in a few weeks’ time.
Union leaders privately acknowledge that it is highly unlikely that the Government will back down on the pay cuts which generated about €1 billion in savings. Any U-turn on one of the main elements of its budgetary strategy would undoubtedly cause major difficulties both politically at home and internationally in the markets for the Government.
However, there is a longer game at play here.
In the current campaign the unions are highlighting not only the anger of members at the pay cuts, which come on top of the imposition of the pension levy, but also are setting down a marker in relation to possible future Government policy on public sector pay.
For over the last year or so there has been a significant change in the industrial relations dynamics in the public sector.
Traditionally pay has been seen by unions as “the grease on the wheel of change”.
If the Government wanted reform it had to pay for it. However, since the budget three Cabinet Ministers have separately warned that if the transformation programme, which the Government considers essential, is not delivered by the unions then the pay of staff could be cut again.
In an interview with RTÉ on Sunday Tánaiste Mary Coughlan pointedly declined to rule out further cuts in pay next year.
The Government very much wants to return to the transformation deal that was under discussion with the unions in the failed talks held before Christmas.
However, the unions saw their offer on public service transformation as part of an overall deal to avoid cuts in basic pay. Following the Government’s decision to opt for the pay cuts there seems little appetite among unions to revisit this issue.
However, it is difficult to see any intervention by the Labour Relations Commission, as proposed at the weekend by its chief executive Kieran Mulvey, that does not have the transformation programme as a central element.
Both Government and unions have welcomed the prospect of such a new process emerging. However, potential difficulties remain in how this would operate.
In the main the Labour Relations Commission seeks to resolve disputes by bringing together employers and unions who are in a position to make final decisions.
Senior managers in the civil service, health sector or local authorities who attend any Labour Relations Commission hearings will not have the authority to make decisions on issues affecting public sector pay. This is a matter exclusively reserved for the Government to decide as part of its budgetary strategy.
Union sources said yesterday that they had not been contacted to date by the Labour Relations Commission on any intervention. How such a process would be structured could determine whether or not it could avoid the public service “gridlock” that has been forecast if the current industrial action continues and escalates.