Doubts on LRC ability to engineer €1bn deal

One of the country’s most senior public service trade union leaders has cast doubt on the Labour Relations Commission’s ability to engineer agreement between unions and the Government on how to cut the State’s wage bill by €1bn by 2015.

Shay Cody, chief executive of the Ictu public services committee and general secretary of Impact, said it would be in the interests of all unions to secure the best outcome in any process that the LRC recommends.

“However, it remains extremely difficult to see how the various positions of unions that voted to reject the package can be reconciled,” he said. “At this time, I do not think we can assume that the LRC will find scope to clarify or finesse the original package in ways that will both meet the employers’ requirements and win acceptance by unions representing a majority of public servants.”

Mr Cody addressed his union’s 60,000 members after he met LRC chief executive Kieran Mulvey, who the Government has given two weeks to establish a deal on how to cut the public service wage bill by €300,000 this year and by €1bn by 2015.

“We reiterated the union’s position that it would be totally unacceptable to Impact if the existing package was changed in ways that worsen the situation for our members in order to accommodate other unions,” said Mr Cody. “We also reiterated that the union will have to respond if the Government imposes measures that go beyond the negotiated package accepted by Impact members in a ballot.”

Meanwhile, delegates at the Civil Public and Services Union’s conference in Galway passed an emergency motion opposing any attempt to tweak the contents of Croke Park II.

The CPSU, which represents 13,000 lower-paid civil servants, said it would engage in industrial action if the Government tried to legislate for pay cuts.

The union’s general secretary, Eoin Ronayne, was reluctant to rule out taking part in talks.

“We must engage in discussions and talks with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform if invited,” said Mr Ronayne. “Not to do so would be to deny our members their right to representation with their employer and to hand the initiative over to others in the public service committee to negotiate our terms and conditions.”

Delegates also passed a motion instructing the incoming executive “to request all unions affiliated to Ictu to publicly sever all ties with the Labour Party, in the light of the Government proposals at the Croke Park talks”. They also instructed the executive to place a motion at the Ictu conference in July which would call for an invitation to be denied to Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore.