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IMPACT Executive Reject Proposed Pay Deal
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It will come as a major blow to Cowen and Brian Lenihan that the executive of IMPACT felt they could not endorse the recent pay and terms deal hammered out between government and unions. At the time, the feeling was that Cowen may have managed to pull something out of the bag by getting the unions on board for the remainder of the government term.
However IMPACT Executive’s decision to reject the proposed deal makes the result of the ballot very difficult to predict and underlines just how difficult the next two budgets are going to be.
While Jack O Connor yesterday put his eggs very much in the basket with the current deal:
Siptu president Jack O’Connor has warned that the rejection of the proposed deal could result in an even worse outcome for public servants.
A message from Mr O’Connor to Siptu members, published yesterday in the union’s Liberty newsletter, said the Government was committed to a fiscal plan which entailed further cuts in 2011 and 2012 and that public servants could have their salaries reduced even further if the pay and reform deal was not implemented.
“We can escalate the action which is at the point of moving to extensive withdrawals of labour. This could result in a better outcome but it will not produce reinstatement of the pay scales in the short term,” he said.
Shay Cody felt quite differently:
“The difficulty is that public service workers are being asked to sign up to a changed programme and there is uncertainty about how far that’s going to go”.
He said there was no certainty that the government would honour its commitments if public servants delivered their side of the bargain, that the government would honour its commitments.
“There is no commitment ultimately on the part of the government that if public servants deliver savings of €100/€200/€300 million over the next 12 months that any of that will come back in the form of pay to public service workers,” he added.
Last night he told the The Irish Times that the executive believed it could not “sell” the deal to members.
Cian,
Unite has now joined IMPACT, the TUI and ASTI as among the big hitter union executives rejecting the deal.
Shay Cody’s statement that the government can’t be trusted to fulfill its part of the deal is quite bizarre – one of the main reasons for the public outcry that derailed the proposed Union/Government deal in December last was lack of public confidence that the unions would honour any deal on public service reform. After all, the evidence was writ large that reforms promised in the past in return for benchmarking pay increases had delivered zilch.
The union leadership are hoist on their own petard. The campaign of industrial action to reverse the December pay cuts was a farce from the beginning. They knew full well that there was no prospect of that happening – yet they gulled their members into believing it was achieveable. The agreement signed off last month is testament to the ‘spin’ in which they had collectively engaged. Now, they’re discovering that their activists and ordinary executive members just won’t wear it. In time-honoured fashion they’re looking around for someone to blame other than their good selves for the debacle. So it’s Anglo pay rises or the ‘untrustworthiness’ of the government or whatever else lame sideshow they can invent to cover for their own ineptitude.
That’s not to say that Jack O’Connor’s representation of the deal as the best available at the present time is incorrect, or that his analysis of the likely consequences of its rejection is wrong either, specifically a round of further pay and social welfare cuts in the next budget. In the scenario that’s unfolding O’Connor will be able to do another about turn, back to his original threat to bring down the government through public sector industrial unrest. Preserving the pre-crisis pay and pensions of public servants in an environment of 13% unemployment and turning their backs on a deal that would have provided stability – and the prospect of ultimate restoration of original pay levels – at a point where there was a prospect of renewal of economic growth (however limp and tepid)should make for an interesting platoform for a general election campaign!
In the latter years of Bertie’s regime the same trade union leadership that are castigating the government as untrustworthy were firmly part of the establishment. Ahern bent over backwards in every policy area to avoid discomfiting the union lobby; from transport to public sector pay to social welfare increases to tax cuts. They were in the tent and they enjoyed every second of it. Now it’s caught up with them as much as it has with Fianna Fail.
It would be easy to say ‘a plague on both their houses’. Except that it’s likely to bring the house crashing down around the ears of the rest of us too.
Shay Cody’s statement that the government can’t be trusted to fulfill its part of the deal is quite bizarre
I find such faith in the honesty and integrity of Fianna Fáil to be quite bizarre, so I guess we’re even.
How’s that PR career going?
However IMPACT Executive’s decision to reject the proposed deal makes the result of the ballot very difficult to predict and underlines just how difficult the next two budgets are going to be.
I hear the Local Government Divisional Executive led the resistance to this nonsense – warm congratulations and thanks to them for standing up to the leadership, who were (yes, Veronica) co-opted by FF many years ago.
The union leadership, having through their inflated salaries, hob-nobbing etc become part of the corporate elite, seem to have great difficulty extricating themselves from their cosy relationship with the government.
However it is now obvious that the rank and file do not see that the “only game in town” promoted union heads, the government and the media is a game they see any future in(the craven union bashing and intimidating/terrorising attitude of RTE, to whom I pay a “licence” is especially galling).
@EWI
Do share your alternative to this “nonsense” agreement.
Immediate restoration of lost pay and a free puppy for every public servant?
That’d be loverly, but you must know its not going to happen.
Seems what’s going on now has far more to do with internal union politics than any realistic hope of negotiating a better deal. The
youngless-old turks in IMPACT want to damage to McLoone, who’s due to retire soon, so in effect they’re seeking to isolate his heir apparent. Which explain Cody’s sudden attack of the jitters on the sale-ability of this agreement. Decoded, what he really means, is oh shyte I mightn’t get to be le grand fromage after all!Seems what’s going on now has far more to do with internal union politics than any realistic hope of negotiating a better deal. The young less-old turks in IMPACT want to damage to McLoone, who’s due to retire soon, so in effect they’re seeking to isolate his heir apparent. Which explain Cody’s sudden attack of the jitters on the sale-ability of this agreement. Decoded, what he really means, is oh shyte I mightn’t get to be le grand fromage after all!
You really do know nothing (and care less), don’t you? (And, boy: projection)
Anyway, I have better uses of my time than to spend it arguing with trolls online; have at it in this thread to your heart’s content.