Impact warns of job losses if savings not made

One of the country’s largest public service unions has warned the Government will be free to impose compulsory redundancies and longer working hours across the sector if fresh negotiations do not yield the required payroll savings.

Impact laid out three possible options now open to the Government for saving €300m this year and €1bn over the next three years from the public sector pay bill.

In a circular to its members, it said those options are:

- Give up on the savings and leave things as they are until the existing Croke Park agreement expires next March;

- Seek to clarify, or even amend, the rejected proposals — perhaps with the assistance of an external facilitator such as the Labour Relations Commission;

- Move to impose the cuts — or a worse package — without agreement.

Impact said the first option was the least likely as it would require extra taxes or cuts in services and would also court a “damaging dust-up with the troika which is currently underwriting the cost of delivering public services”.

It also warned that option would only bring temporary relief to public servants as the existing Croke Park deal would run out within a year.

The unions would then have to go back into negotiation on a successor, Impact warned, at a time when the budgetary figures would be even worse. It said an even worse package would be the likely outcome.

Impact said the second option, negotiation, seemed the most likely Government move but the scope for that was limited.

“The proposed deal negotiated earlier this year was itself a delicately constructed package that sought to raise a broadly proportionate contribution from all groups within the public service. If €1bn is still to be saved, you can only make things more acceptable for one group by making it less acceptable for another.”

Impact said it would not accept any situation where its members would face a worse package to appease members of other unions.

“There is no certainty that the ‘no’ unions would change their view if the proposals were clarified or finessed,” it said. “In fact some have a long-standing tradition of opposing everything on the assumption that others will carry the day.”

Impact said the third option would emerge if the second did not yield the required savings for the Government.

“This would also mean the collapse of the existing agreement, leaving the path clear for management to seek to impose anything from compulsory redundancies and increased working hours to cuts in increments, flexitime arrangements and other working conditions,” it said.

“The cabinet is likely to discuss the issue when it meets on Tuesday but it will be no surprise if it takes another week for a clear Government response to be articulated.

“Then it will have to act fast if it remains determined to make savings this year.”