Emergency workers may join picket lines

EMERGENCY service workers will support an escalation of industrial action in the public sector in opposition to wage and service cutbacks.

The 24/7 Frontline Alliance, which represents nurses, gardaí, prison officers and firemen, has warned its members will join other public servants on the picket lines.

Frontline Alliance chairman Des Kavanagh of the Psychiatric Nurses Association said: “The alliance is putting the Government on notice that we will be joining our colleagues in other public sector unions on the picket lines if that is what it takes to make the wealthy in our society pay their fair share.”

“If this administration does not have the will to stand up against powerful vested interests on behalf of the vast majority of our citizens, ordinary, hard- working people, it should at least have the decency to stand down,” he added.

Public sector unions are conducting a campaign of low-level industrial action in response to the government decision to unilaterally enforce pay cuts.

Mr Kavanagh said: “Unless the Government is willing to re-engage with the trade union movement in the next few weeks there is no way that the present situation can be allowed to continue. It is already beginning to have a severe effect on the delivery of services to the public.”

The decision of the Frontline Alliance to support an escalation in action came before this morning’s meeting of the Public Services Committee of ICTU.

Several of the unions that constitute the committee have already said they will be proposing a major increase in industrial action.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) executive council has voted in favour of a campaign of rolling work stoppages in hospitals and other health services.

On Friday, the Civil Public Servants Union (CPSU) issued strike notice to the government that begins on March 15.

CPSU members have been particularly angered by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s decision to reverse pay cuts for the highest paid civil servants.

In his letter notifying the government of the strike notice CPSU general secretary Blair Horan stated that his members were at a loss to “how people in leadership positions in the civil service who played a key part in formulating the Government policy to impose pay cuts on lower paid Public Servants could justify campaigning for a restoration of their own pay”.

A targeted CPSU strike would likely halt the operation of the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Passport Office.

Meanwhile, the results of SIPTU and UNITE ballots of Aer Lingus staff will also be announced today.

Last Friday, in the face of threats from Aer Lingus management that rejection of a cost cutting plan would result in 1,100 compulsory redundancies, cabin crew members of Impact voted against accepting the deal by 64% to 34%.

In contrast, IALPA pilots at Aer Lingus backed the plan by 81% to 19%.

The ballots’ outcome is likely to see the threat of strike action return if management continues to pursue what unions describe as a “get tough” approach to negotiations.

Meanwhile in the North up to 2,500 civil and public servants are to take part in a 48-hour strike on March 8 and 9 in a dispute over unilateral changes to redundancy terms.