Strike threat escalates passport dispute

THE stakes have been significantly raised in the Government’s conflict with the public sector unions, with passport workers ready to strike early next week if their pay is docked.

Last night, Civil and Public Sector Union (CPSU) general secretary Blair Horan said those seeking passports should not be “fearful” as a strike will only take place if a Department of Foreign Affairs threat to dock the wages of workers partaking in industrial action is carried out.

Mr Horan said: “We had a threat from Department of Foreign Affairs management to the pay of our people.

“On the one hand, we responded to that threat in a very clear fashion that we won’t tolerate it and on the other hand we took steps to alleviate pressure on the passport office.

“We do not want to talk about strikes as the situation should not be made worse, but by the same token, the management side needn’t think they can threaten our people with pay cuts and get away with it.”

On Tuesday, the CPSU offered to “amend” their seven-week industrial action at passport offices to allow those imminent travel plans to apply for emergency passports.

The union “work to rule campaign” has seen the backlog for passport applications mounted to nearly 50,000, and has resulted in large queues forming outside the Dublin passport office daily.

However, within hours of the union’s offer, Foreign Affairs Minster Micheál Martin stated that he wanted a complete suspension of the union’s industrial action.

It is believed the union also served strike notice on Tuesday with an agreement it would not be revealed to the media. Union sources state the passport office management broke this agreement.

According to negotiators, the worsening situation at the Dublin passport office is impacting on trust between union and government sides at the public sector pay and reform talks being held at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

Adding to this, LRC chief executive Kieran Mulvey yesterday stated that the revelation that some employees at the nationalised Anglo Irish Bank are to receive pay raises has caused further difficulties for the negotiations.

Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs secretary general, David Cooney, had said calls to outsource the work of the passport office to private companies had been considered but involved major security issues.

He called upon the CPSU to end their industrial action but agreed that the dispute was a part of wider confrontation between public sector unions and the Government.

Foreign affairs officials said that calls for passport extensions or the issuing of other emergency travel documentation were impractical due to security concerns.

However, some Belfast-based low cost carriers are no longer requesting passports for travel to Britain but approaches to Ryanair to follow suit had been rebuffed.

The CPSU annual conference starts today in Galway, with union and government talks also reaching “crunch” discussions on pay and pensions over the weekend.