Failure to make progress on issues in the Croke Park agreement by September could result in change imposed from outside the country and “significant industrial relations and social trouble”, the Labour Relations Commission chief executive has claimed.
Kieran Mulvey said the industrial relations agreement, which runs from 2010 to 2014, had certain things that needed to be “jettisoned” but other things that needed to be added. But he said the “essentials” of the deal had to remain the same.
Describing it as an “organic” agreement, he said it was in his view delivering “significant savings”. But he was concerned that parties here “sometimes seem to take the scenic route to change”.
“We are in an international crisis. We are in a peripheral economy. We are in a major export economy. We cannot pay our own way, and we need to change – publicly and privately – our approach to work, the way we work, how we reward and pay ourselves for that work and how we maintain valuable and essential public services,” Mr Mulvey said.
He noted Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin had set a September deadline for the full, comprehensive review of public expenditure.
“It’s a policy decision by the Minister, but I think there needs to be engagement around this [in] June, July and August. I don’t think anybody is in a position at the moment to take a more leisurely view on it,” Mr Mulvey said.
“We are going to face major decisions by international organisations who are funding this country and funding the wages of a lot of people in this country, and if we don’t do it ourselves they are going to come up with solutions for us.
“The only solutions they can come up with – as I see it at the moment – is potential ones that could cause significant industrial relations and social trouble in this country.”
He said unless we implemented change ourselves, “it will be done for us in September by the troika [the EU, IMF and ECB]”.
Speaking on Newstalk, he noted some 16,400 civil servants or public servants had left the system and had not been replaced in the last two years.
A total of 2,000 left in the first quarter of this year, with the potential for another 1,500 to leave before the end of the year. “By any stretch that is significant labour loss within any level of employment.”
He said the Government had a target of 302,000 public servants in employment in the State by the end of this year.
“I think that target will be easily reached. I’m in the business of dispute resolution in industrial relations and human resource management. My view is all alternatives should be considered before the ultimate sanction is applied.”
Mr Mulvey said he had heard people from the ESRI, as well as economists and political commentators, all the time “bashing” public servants.
“I mean, do we want our schools to close, do we want our hospitals to close, do we want our transport service to close, do we want our fire-fighting service to close?”
“There are ways of negotiating change. I think the big issue for us is introducing a culture of change. I deal a lot with the private sector, and I would have to say that the culture of change in the private sector is far more advanced than it is in the public service.”