LOWER-PAID civil servants are the only group who deserve to have pay cuts reversed under the Croke Park agreement as they are the only ones who have delivered on reform, said the president of their trade union.
Speaking at the first day of the annual conference of the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) in Athlone, Denis Walshe said by giving up time off to cash pay cheques – so-called “bank time” – his members had increased productivity by roughly 50,000 days per year.
He said in pay terms, they had given up 1.6 per cent of their salary. Mr Walshe said he made no apologies about concentrating on what the CPSU had done in relation to public sector reform “as opposed to what other unions have not done”.
“To date, as far as I am aware, CPSU is the only union to have renounced any of its hard-earned terms and conditions. All of this on top of what we had already lost over the last three years.”
Mr Walshe called on the Government to invoke the clause in the Croke Park agreement which held out the potential of a reversal of pay groups if savings from the programme were delivered.
“In light of the savings we in the CPSU have made, I insist on a meaningful restoration of pay and that they [the Government] prioritise those grades we represent. We have honoured our side of the bargain by making savings for the nation. Now it is up to the Government to show that they are people of honour unlike their predecessors.
“I am saying that Government should restore our pay and not pussyfoot about it. And I am saying that we in the CPSU are the only ones who deserve that restoration”, he said. Mr Walshe questioned the nature of the reform in some Government departments.
He said the thinking behind the recent incentivised early retirement scheme in the Civil Service was that once a post was vacated it would not be filled and savings would be made on the wage bill.
However, he said in the Department of Social Protection two-thirds of senior management posts which became vacant when staff left under the early retirement scheme were filled.
“Is this the nature of public service reform. Pay somebody a pension earlier than would be the norm and then replace them with somebody else. In effect, you end up paying 1½ times more for the same job to be done.”
In his address, CPSU general secretary Blair Horan said senior management in the Civil Service had used the recent controversial arbitration board finding on privilege days to secure additional days leave for themselves even though they were not covered by the process.
He said the only staff in the Civil Service who made concessions on time and attendance issues as part of reforms were lower-paid workers.
The Civil Service Arbitration Board recently rejected proposals by the Department of Finance to abolish privilege days – additional days off on top of holidays – for personnel at higher executive, assistant principal and principal officer grades.
Mr Horan said it seemed that top-level managers who were not covered by the arbitration scheme in the Civil Service would retain their privilege days also, contrary to previous expectations.
“It does however say something about a lack of good leadership, and perhaps a certain arrogance left over from the Celtic Tiger days, that senior Civil Service management could preside over a process that brought negative publicity for the public service, while they protected their own patch.”
CPSU deputy general secretary Eoin Ronayne said action plans drawn up by Civil Service management under the Croke Park deal contained “potential booby traps which one thoughtless trip could explode into industrial mayhem”.