Collapse of talks ‘a bid to drive down pay’

SENIOR trade union leaders last night claimed the Government collapsed the public sector pay talks as part of a campaign to drive down wages in order to improve competitiveness.

Irish Congress of Trade Unions leader David Begg said the Government was looking for a pay cut in the public sector, not just to correct the country’s finances but also to achieve a competitive devaluation of wages right across the economy in order to improve competitiveness.

“It would have been felt by business that if this (unpaid leave) had been achieved in the public sector we would not be able to resist it in the private sector,” he said.

Mr Begg claimed unions had been left astonished that the Government ended the talks because he said “all its problems had been solved” just hours earlier when issues such as the introduction of an 8am-8pm rota in the health service were agreed.

The ICTU Public Services Committee accused the Government of turning its back on a deal that would have produced a massive transformation in the delivery of public services, met the Government’s required reductions in 2010 payroll costs and avoided a second public service pay cut in less than a year.

It said the deal “abandoned” by the Government would have saved billions of euro while protecting – and in some cases extending – public services as resources and staff numbers declined over the next four years.

The president of the committee Peter McLoone said the Government had abandoned a revolutionary approach to public service reform in favour of conflict.

He said he now believed Finance Minister Brian Lenihan would likely carry out his threat to impose a second public service pay cut in next week’s Budget, as a prelude to a concerted attack on pay rates across the economy – starting with the minimum wage.

IMPACT national secretary for health Kevin Callinan said what unions had been willing to concede was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to radically reform the health sector, conscious of the difficult economic environment the country was in and with a focus on quality and accessibility.

As well as the new 8am-8pm core working days, health unions said they had been offering such incentives as:

- The introduction of new rosters, leading to more flexible services and a further reduced overtime budget.

- Ongoing reductions in the number of in-patient beds and increases in day care, outpatient and diagnostic capacity, in order to provide faster access to services at lower cost.

- Greater range of health services in community settings so that more patients could receive treatment at home.