Further strike threatened unless talks are successful

By Stephen Rogers

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

STRIKES by the bulk of the State’s 310,000 employees will cripple public services for another 24 hours next week unless pay talks beginning this afternoon are successful.

Before yesterday’s action had concluded, public service trade union leaders gathered to tell the Government it has less than a week to agree an alternative to the pay and pension cuts and compulsory redundancies it proposes.

Failure will see schools close and medical appointments and procedures cancelled on December 3.

"Today’s national public service strike, we believe, has shown our members have the strength and resolve to resist the Government if it pursues an unfair and counterproductive round of pay cuts," said Peter McLoone, public service committee chairman of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

"We want to agree an approach to real public sector reform that can protect and in some cases expand vital public services over the next three to four years. We don’t underestimate the challenge this presents. It will be far more difficult but it has the potential to transform our public service in a way that de-motivating pay cuts never will."

He said unions are determined the talks will not adjourn until they reach a solution or fail. If they fail, public servants would reluctantly bring public services to a halt once more.

However, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said talk of further strikes will not change the Government’s commitment to take €1.3 billion off the public sector wage bill. "They [the discussions] won’t be any different tomorrow than they were yesterday or today or any other day either."

Mr McLoone, meanwhile, described claims that thousands of public servants used the strike to head north to shop as "nonsensical".

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, November 25, 2009