Three more unions reject pay deal

A FURTHER three unions have rejected the Croke Park deal on public service pay and reform, including the organisation representing 40,000 of the country’s nurses.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s (INMO) ballot yielded one of the most decisive votes against, with 84% opposing the deal and only 16% voting in favour. Almost two-thirds of members voted.

“Today’s ballot result, which saw our members vote 4:1 to reject the Croke Park Proposals, is just the latest illustration of nurses and midwives speaking out, and speaking up, for their patients,” said INMO general secretary Liam Doran.

“We have consistently argued that the Croke Park Proposals, with the requirement to cut 6,000 further health service posts and close another 3,500 beds, is totally unacceptable, harmful and, notwithstanding our current economic situation, totally unjustifiable.”

UNITE trade union’s 6,000 members in health, education, local authorities, government agencies and the civil service voted 65% against with a turn-out of 75%.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents 1,100 craft workers in the public sector, returned a verdict of 66% against and 34% in favour on a turn-out of 49%.

On a more positive note for pro-deal campaigners, the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association (MLSA) voted decisively in favour of acceptance of the terms.

The ballot of its 1,800 members in the public service yielded a result of 81% in favour on a turn-out of 68.4%.

In spite of a number of larger unions rejecting the deal the general perception is that the terms hammered out will still be backed by the majority of the public service trade union movement.

The ballot results of the two largest public service unions, IMPACT andSIPTU, have yet to be announced but the executives of both have pushed foracceptance.

When all the results of the individual ballots are completed, each of the unions which make up the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will be allocated a number of votes, based on their union size. They will cast those votes in an overall ballot of the committee in order to decide ICTU’s position.

There are a total of 2,885 votes in that ballot. Of those SIPTU and IMPACT carry a combined 1,325. If both unions go into that ballot with a mandate from their unions for acceptance, they combined with the other unions who have already backed the deal will be enough to see it ratified.