Union: Public servants must separate anger

THE president of the country’s largest trade union has warned public service workers they must separate their anger over the Government’s handling of banking crisis from the decision they must make on whether to accept or reject the latest pay deal.

SIPTU president Jack O’Connor said people were rightly “incensed” at what had been going on with a “golden circle” making up rules as they went along and the fact it was costing the state so much to address the fallout from their actions.

But he said public servants needed to consider the pay deal hammered out between the Government and unions earlier this week “on its intrinsic merits and not on the scandal of the banks”.

“That will entail (public service workers) making the judgment as to the degree to which it offers people a degree of security in relation to their jobs,” he said.

Under the agreement, hammered out in Croke Park in the early hours of last Tuesday, the Government has undertaken not to impose any further pay cuts on state employees before 2014 in return for significant reforms in the delivery of public services. It has also indicated it will look at restoring the pay scales of workers reduced in the last budget if the reforms deliver sufficient savings.

Mr O’Connor’s own union executive meets on April 13 to decide whether to recommend that its 70,000 public service members accept or reject the deal.

Meanwhile, an ad-hoc group of trade union officers, brought together by the Dublin branch of the TUI, yesterday voiced their concerns about the proposals they say face rejection by the majority of public servants.

National secretary of SIPTU’s full-time fire officers John Kidd said feelings among the 1,500 members of his branch were overwhelmingly against acceptance.

“The trade union leadership have a lot to answer for by signing up to this,” he said.

TUI presidential candidate Finbarr Geaney said the deal was “an abject surrender” by the trade union movement and amounted to “the union being asked to carry out government policy” on the banking sector.

Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s Jo Tully termed the deal a “disaster” and said she was confident it would be rejected by union members.

A number of unions said the views expressed by members at the gathering were those of the individuals and did not necessarily reflect the feelings of the union.