Is the tax-payer shelling out too much to sustain social partnership?

SOME people are going to be paid a lot of extra money for what, to most outsiders, will seem the same amount of work.

Yesterday, it was reported that radiographers, radiation therapists, clinical specialists and radiography service managers in hospitals are to be paid an additional allowance of €1,800 every year.

They are getting this boost in their pay packets for agreeing that radiography units at hospitals will open from 8am until 6pm rather than the current hours of 9am to 5pm.

They are not being paid this extra money because they are doing any extra work the normal working week of each individual radiographer or radiation therapist will stay the same.

They are getting this pay-out because some of them will be rostered to start and go home an hour earlier and others will be rostered to start and finish an hour later.

The need to open radiography units for longer periods has been cited by the Tánaiste and others as one of the steps necessary to get patients diagnosed, treated and discharged from hospitals more efficiently and thereby free up beds and facilities, particularly in accident and emergency departments.

However, it appears that the only way to get these units opened for two hours longer each day is to pay this extra money to the existing workers, who will be doing no extra work.

It was wrong that the original contracts of these workers confined the radiography units into an "office hours" routine while equipment was left idle and patients left waiting. However, it is absurd that they are now being paid this not insubstantial sum to buy them out of this restrictive practice.

Congratulations to their unions, or whoever negotiated this pay-out for them, but surely an 8am start or a 6pm finish will suit some of these people, not least because it will make it easier to avoid the peak hour traffic.

A 10am start every second week, or similar, would be a bonus many workers would gladly avail of it without seeking an additional penny.

While the question of paying "shift allowances" sometimes arises, surely they can't be justified when you are simply moving the working day one hour each side.

If two shop assistants were told that, because of changing shopping habits, the store was going to open earlier and close later and that, as a result, one of them would have to start and finish an hour earlier while the other would start and finish an hour later, they would not expect to be paid a load of extra money for this flexibility and to be paid it every year as long as they remain in that job.

The Health Service Executive hasn't said how many additional opening hours it initially sought for the radiography units but it is anxious to emphasise that this additional payment will be subsumed into any future benchmarking award.

Apparently, this means that if, in the next round of benchmarking (if there is one), these workers are awarded, say, a €5,000 increase (on top of their annual social partnership increment) then they will actually only get €3,200 extra because they will already be receiving the special €1,800 payment they have just negotiated.

This sounds very theoretical to me.

Overall, this looks like a very bad deal for the taxpayer. We are getting no extra work from each worker and only getting a mere two hours' additional opening for these units in return for this large payment.

THIS week has also seen coverage of a story about some Shannon Airport workers who, as part of a redundancy programme, are being offered loads of extra money even though they are holding on to their jobs.

Shannon Airport is enjoying a cash windfall because of the large number of United States troop movements through it.

In the longer term, however, the airport will not be financially viable unless it modernises. In line with the pattern in many other airports, and indeed in most service industries, the airport authority at Shannon will have to move to having fewer of its own employees and to outsourcing some of its functions.

As part of a restructuring programme the Airport Authority is proposing, in particular, to outsource its catering and is seeking a reduction of 200 in its 520-strong workforce at the airport.

Nobody is being forced into redundancy, however, and all redundancies are voluntary. Those who are accepting redundancies are getting a very good package.

Workers, for example, who have been employed for more than 24 years are getting a €100,000 lump sum and can take up their full company pension when they reach the age of 55.

It is a generous package but you can at least accept the logic of ensuring that a person who has given a lifetime's service to a company, and is losing their job at a later age, has some cushion.

However, it is the deal being offered to those 320 workers who are staying in their jobs which is the most remarkable.

The company is offering a lump sum payment of €10,000 to those who remain so that they will allow their co-workers to take voluntary redundancy and allow some franchisers to run the restaurants and other facilities in the airport.

What is even more astonishing is that the workers are not happy to accept this €10,000 they want more. Talks about the restructuring plan have been going on since last summer and the Labour Court and Labour Relations Commission have become involved in trying to resolve it.

Prominent coverage has also been given this week to the story about workers at the Waterford Stanley plant in Waterford who are to vote on whether to accept €500 in settlement of a dispute with the company over compensation for moving their jobs three miles down the road.

The unions at the company had been looking for a "relocation fee" of €2,300 per employee in compensation before they would cooperate with plans to move offices and production from the firm's current site at Bilberry to another factory at an industrial estate three miles away.

Here, too, the Labour Relations Commission got involved in talks between unions and management representatives in order to negotiate a compromise on the matter and the reduced payout of €500 was agreed.

No doubt the union's decision to accept the lower amount was influenced by the fact that the company threatened to close the plant and make the workers redundant and move production to another factory instead.

Obviously, governments can't threaten to close down hospitals and airports in order to get workers to agree to more flexibility.

It may seem unfair to focus on the deals being offered to these workers but it's getting to the stage where you have to wonder whether we are paying too high a price for sustaining social partnership in this country.

The desire for industrial relations peace, especially in the public sector, means that departments and public enterprises are prepared to pay too much to buy the type of changes in work practices which economic reality has already enforced on the private sector.

The public sector unions are extracting a very high price for even minimal flexibility, all the while comfortable in the knowledge that a cash-rich exchequer, facing an electorate desperate for improvement in public services, will continue to pick up the tab.