Two public sector unions vote to accept pay deal

The INTO’s general secretary John Boyle said that his members had “recognised” that the new deal would “significantly increase their purchasing power in the period ahead”, thus narrowing an earnings gap which the union said had developed in recent years. File photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Two of Ireland’s largest public sector unions have voted to accept the latest pay deal agreed with the Government in January of this year, effectively guaranteeing its ratification.

Both Fórsa and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) have given their backing to the deal which will see 385,000 public servants given an effective 10.25% pay hike over the next three years.

Fórsa, the largest public sector union in the country, said that some 94% of its turn-out of 52,729 members had voted in favour of the deal, following a ballot last month which saw the union’s executive recommend the deal’s endorsement.

The INTO meanwhile said that 18,776, or 82%, of its turn-out had voted to accept the deal. Just 53% of its more than 40,000 members voted on the ballot.

The INTO’s general secretary John Boyle said that his members had “recognised” that the new deal would “significantly increase their purchasing power in the period ahead”, thus narrowing an earnings gap which the union said had developed in recent years.

The public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will now meet on March 25 to ballot the 19 constituent unions which will be affected by the new deal which was eventually clinched following snap talks in late January. 

It followed a number of false starts with unions pulling out of discussions at the Workplace Relations Commission just two weeks before an agreement was finally reached. The build-up to its acceptance had been somewhat fraught, with talks initially collapsing before Christmas. 

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This led to an unheard-of scenario with the previous public sector deal, known as Building Momentum, left to expire on December 31 without a successor deal being in place.

In early January, the negotiating unions' team pulled out of discussions after rejecting the Government’s offer of an 8.5% pay hike worth €2.9bn.

The final deal will be worth an additional €700m above and beyond that initial offer, representing something of a coup for the unions.

The new deal is projected to comfortably exceed inflation projections, thus bringing a sense of finality to the cost-of-living woes being experienced by public servants, particularly those on lower incomes.