Fórsa wants return to pre-crisis working hours for its members

The largest public sector trade union in the country is to seek a return to the working hours for civil servants that were in place before the financial crisis.

Fórsa want a mid-term review of the Public Service Stability Agreement to review the extra working hours brought in under the 2013 Haddington Road agreement. Fórsa senior general secretary designate Kevin Callinan told the union’s civil service conference in Kilkenny that it disputed the Government’s estimate that reversing the addition of 2.25 hours to the working week of lower and middle-earning civil servants under Haddington Road would cost some €600m.

“The figure is at least 50% higher than the Government estimate when the additional time was introduced in 2013,” Mr Callinan said.

“And we have made the wider point that advances in new technologies and work organisation could defray much of the cost of reduced working time in the public service and elsewhere.”

He noted that 12 branches had submitted motions on the issue of increased working time — more than on any other issue under consideration.

“A few years ago, when we were in the eye of the economic storm, I opposed similar conference motions,” he said. “But I’d struggle to construct a convincing argument against them now, in light of our current economic performance and rapidly-developing technological possibilities.”

The chair of Fórsa’s civil service division, Niall McGuirk, said civil servants now collectively worked 75,000 more hours each week than in 2013.

“The extra hours imposed on our members under the Haddington Road agreement still rankle with many,” said Mr McGuirk.

“While the Public Service Stability Agreement is unwinding the emergency legislation that introduced pay cuts in 2009 and 2010, the question of hours still needs to be resolved.

“Our average hourly rate of pay has decreased, with civil servants earning just 93% of what they earned 10 years ago,” Mr Callinan said.

Meanwhile, union delegates have heard calls for a Citizens’ Assembly to examine local government reform.

Seán Reid, chair of Fórsa’s Local Government and Local Services division, said the Citizens’ Assembly’s “meticulous work” has brought about seismic constitutional change.

“In that same vein, we should be ambitious in our aim to reclaim local democracy, and to consider the Citizens Assembly as an appropriate forum to make progress on local democratic reform,” he said.