THE AGREEMENT between the Government and unions finally brokered in the early hours of yesterday morning offers the prospect, in theory at least, of sustained industrial peace in State services, a stable and even declining pay bill up to 2014 and, at long last, the real possibility of wide-ranging reform and greater efficiency within the public services. There were no numbers on the latter, although Minister for Health Mary Harney has spoken of 6,000 fewer employees in the health sector. Pro rata that would mean a reduction of about 18,000 through the public service.
That is the prospect if the agreement is accepted by trade union members, if it is implemented promptly and radically by public service management, if it is driven decisively by its political masters, most particularly new Minister of State “with responsibility for Public Service Transformation” Dara Calleary, and if it is properly monitored by the new “implementation body”. But these are big “ifs”. The Government need not rest on its laurels.
For public service workers the main sweeteners are the guarantee of no compulsory redundancies and no further pay cuts – though some would lose because of cuts in premium/overtime payments as a result of the redefining of the working day – and the prospect that some pay cuts, particularly for the low-paid, may be recouped through self-financing productivity gains from redeployment, reduced numbers and new working practices.
Unions appear to be on the back foot and are scrambling to hold the line. In effect they have conceded last year’s pay cuts, with all the talk of restoring lost pay in 2011 largely just a more palatable way of saying “normal pay bargaining resumes next year”. And such bargaining will be severely constrained by the sustainability requirement which is dependent entirely on management moving fast and successfully to make savings. An inability-to-pay clause will also give the Government room for manoeuvre and is of critical importance given the continuing economic uncertainties facing the exchequer.
Of equal importance is the credibility of the independent implementation body which will monitor and quantify progress. There is a strong sense among the public that many of the promises of flexibility wrung out of the unions are concessions already bought and paid for under that most opaque of processes, benchmarking, but never delivered by public service employees or management. That must not happen again.