Workers get €34m in record pay award

THE Government will have to pay €34m to 5,500 lower-paid civil servants, primarily women, in the largest equal pay award in this country.

This follows an out-of-court settlement between the Department of Finance and the 13,000-member Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU), which first lodged the claim on behalf of 26 women clerical workers in 1991.

The 26 will each receive between €30,000 and €35,000 in compensation, back-dated to 1988, while 5,459 others, who were clerical officers in 1997 and are still in that grade, will get some €6,000 each.

The package met with considerable approval at the annual CPSU conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, yesterday, with only four of the 350 delegates voting against it.

“This is a marvellous victory. It feels good here today to be able to take €34m off Charlie McCreevy, particularly in current circumstances,” said the union’s general secretary, Blair Horan.

“But this is not the end of the road. It’s just one settlement in a wider equality agenda. We are pursuing others, including benchmarking, which has serious implications for everyone in our union.”

The 26 women who brought the original case were being paid the equivalent of €200 in 1991, compared to the €250 being paid to men doing the same work.

The Department of Finance, now facing serious long-term implications following the award, rejected the equality claim at the time.

The claim then went to the Labour Relations Commission, the Labour Court, the High Court and finally back to the Labour Court, which granted full equal pay to the 26 in December 2001.

In 1997, a claim was lodged on behalf of 5,000 other clerical employees, all of them women. A High Court case is pending later this year, but settlement negotiations got underway following an approach to the union by the Department of Finance last December.

Following the acceptance of the package, finalised last Thursday evening, the High Court case will not now proceed.

CPSU deputy general secretary Rosaleen Glackin said the department initially offered €22m as a settlement. She strongly urged delegates to accept €34m, as there was no guarantee of a successful outcome if they continued to pursue the case in the High Court.

Ms Glackin, a leading negotiator on equality issues, said the award would encourage others to take cases. Three similar actions are being pursued by the CPSU.

One case involves 1,200 women clerical workers in the Justice Department’s garda section, another involves 60 employees in the Irish Aviation Authority, and another challenges a benchmarking award to 10,000 female clerical workers.