Pay claims only mean bad times

With solid recovery now firmly established in the Irish economy, one might have thought that we had left the dark days of the Great Recession behind us, but alas that is far from the case.

The ongoing outburst of industrial relations discord in the public and semi-state sector is very much a part of the painful legacy of the economic and financial crisis that cast the nation into a dark hole from 2008 onwards. Public sector workers took a significant hit during the crisis in terms of pay, pensions and general conditions of employment.

One particularly obnoxious feature of the public sector pay adjustments was the fact that the relevant unions allowed new teachers be taken on at lower pay levels than their longer-serving peers. However, faced with many equally unpalatable options, the relevant unions clearly believed that this was the least worse option.