Unions set six week strike deadline

By Paul O’Brien and Stephen Rogers

Monday, March 01, 2010

UNION leaders have given the Government six weeks to commit to reversing public service pay cuts or face nationwide strikes across key services.

The public sector committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) will meet on March 8 to decide how to escalate their ongoing action against the pay cuts introduced in the December budget.

IMPACT, the biggest solely public service union, has already said it will be pushing for rolling work stoppages across sectors. That is likely to be accepted by the other unions and it will then be a matter of deciding how soon to start the escalation.

While some will be anxious to start as soon as possible – potentially within two weeks of that meeting – others have indicated they may be prepared to give the Government as much as four weeks’ notice before commencing strikes.

Head of ICTU David Begg warned yesterday that the campaign would steadily build in the next six weeks and there was a danger of it "coming to a head".

That could mean all-out strike action by a significant percentage of the country’s 300,000 public servants before the summer.

"That’s (six weeks) the window of opportunity that we have to find some way of solving the problem, and it would be unconscionable if we actually allowed it to build to a head without seriously trying to resolve the differences between us," he said.

The leader of the country’s largest trade union, SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor, echoed those comments.

"I don’t know in the case of my own union how much longer I can keep this slow bicycle race going," he told the Irish Examiner.

"If we don’t have proposals within six weeks, or at least a very robust process of engagement, we’re going to have to decide to embark on a much more sustained campaign, which I think would be most regrettable."

But a Government minister insisted the Coalition will not budge on pay cuts.

"They’re not going to be reversed," Community Affairs Minister Éamon O Cuív told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan made it clear over the weekend that further public service savings would be required in next December’s budget.

Mr Lenihan said €3 billion of "adjustments" would have to be made in the budget and reductions in the cost of public services would have to form part of this.

It was reported yesterday that Mr Lenihan wants public service savings to make up €500m of this €3bn.

The Government believes this can be achieved through reform of the public service rather than further pay cuts.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen is expected to appoint a dedicated minister for public service reform in the imminent Cabinet reshuffle.

But the unions want the Government to commit to a plan to reverse the December pay cuts, which saw an average 7% reduction for public servants, before they negotiate on reform.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 01, 2010