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2009

PUBLIC SERVICE TALKS COLLAPSE

Date Released: 04 Dec 2009

Negotiations between public service unions and government employers, with a view to formulating a proposal for agreement on transformation in the public service, have broken down. The objective was to optimise the quality and delivery of public services while simultaneously protecting terms and conditions of employment against the background of the most severe budgetary crisis in the history of the State.

The transformation would have entailed effective reconfiguration of the public service and protection against compulsory redundancy - on the basis of a robust redeployment agreement, the optimum use of the most modern technologies and the protection of pay, pensions and terms and conditions of employment.  

The Government is insisting on a €1.3 billion cut in the public service pay and pensions bill this year. Ultimately, in our view this could have been achieved through the transformation process but that takes time. Consequently, discussions took place on a number of measures to "bridge" the period from January 1st to end December 2010.

In this context, the concept of public servants taking 12 days unpaid leave emerged as well as a number of other measures.

This evoked a near hysterical response stoked by sensational media headlines. Undoubtedly, it provoked concern among people genuinely interested in public services that the pay cut had been avoided at the expense of service provision.

However, the real indignation was displayed by those who have been promoting pay cutting across the economy as a means of "improving competitiveness" exclusively at the expense of working people while it remains "business as usual" for the 5% who own 40% of our national wealth. Inflicting another pay cut across the public service is critical to their agenda as it will facilitate their driving it across the private sector as well. (All surveys to date show that only between 10% and 14% of workers in the private sector have taken cuts in their actual rate of pay, as distinct from reductions in the pay bill through various other measures.)

The "bridging mechanism" of the 12 days unpaid leave frustrates this agenda - thus the real reason for the hysteria and histrionics played out over recent days.



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