The previous public sector pay deal, Public Service Agreement, delivered 10.25% pay increases over effectively 3 years in 7 phased payments plus a local bargaining payment of 1% to be agreed by the sectors within the public service. This final element, meant to provide for local bargaining to resolve specific bargaining agenda items, has not been without its problems with some unions still in the dispute resolution process over the 1%.
Public Sector unions say the PSA is now up and Forsa have stated that ‘In exploratory talks in June, the Department of Public Expenditure officials, representing the Government, did not convince your union negotiators that your standard of living will be protected in a new agreement. They want another agreement that guarantees industrial peace, cost certainty for budgetary planning, and wide-ranging cooperation with reform and other changes.’
It is on the back of this that most public sector unions are now balloting members for industrial action in the biggest mobilisation of workers since the Troika/Government attack on public service pensions in 2010/11.
The Industrial Committee of the Party has taken the opportunity to interview one of our members who is a union activist in the Public Sector to get their view on this mobilisation.
Have you a rep position in the union?
I am an IFUT delegate at the Dublin Trades Council, and I traditionally attend IFUT’s Annual Delegates Conference as a Trinity College delegate.
What do you feel are the grievances public sector workers generally have heading into these talks?
The contradictions of workers’ experience and actions of the Government give a good idea of the grievances. Not only does the inflation and cost of living crisis collide with the Government’s lack of action, but it also indicates that the Government has full knowledge of the effects such a position produces: and that “stability” is to be maintained at workers’ expense. Cans kicked down the road in previous public sector agreements are to be accepted as lost, expectations are to be adjusted somewhere between buying fighter jets and cutting VAT for McDonalds. Workers also know well that the vacuum left in place of public sector agreement could be rapidly filled by unilateral decisions of employers to permanently alter the configuration of our workplaces, and degrade the position of workers collectively and individually even further.
Your union is balloting for industrial action along with most public sector unions, that’s a big step already, can you tell us why?
The government does not display signs of serious involvement in this process; while this is an indicator of where they see their power lie, it also leaves space to be claimed by organised labour. When in early July the ICTU Public Services Committee asked its 19 affiliated unions to prepare for industrial-action ballots, it was a push borne from realistic analysis of a situation comparable to that seen during the crash and its immediate aftermath. It is not a trigger-happy drive for industrial action, far from it; it is a recognition of appropriate, timely engagement with difficult conditions across the public sector, and that the action is appropriate only if coordinated and consolidated. For a lot of unions, including IFUT, this ballot comes both as a statement of position on the coming public sector talks, but also of the experience seen under the previous agreement, where promises remain unfulfilled, and local bargaining has not been successful.
As a union activist what is your job in the ballot?
Upon receiving communication on the ballot from the general secretary in a circular sent out to general membership, I have taken up the task outlined in it–active discussion of the issues of public sector pay negotiations, and recruitment of new members. I have prepared printed materials, leaflets and posters based on information circulated from the union and disseminated them as means of initiating important conversations. The email campaign effort from the head office to reach all workers in our workplace has helped my colleagues familiarise with the issue at hand as well; as saturated as people’s email inboxes are, a well-worded email goes a long way–if followed up in the flesh.
How are workers responding to this?
More than half a century ago, IFUT balloted its membership on joining ICTU. It was one in the series of difficult questions for the Federation; even its name is rather suggestive of the contradictions it was navigating. The notion of the organisation as a federation of individual staff associations in different workplaces at institutions of higher education illustrates the original question whether IFUT should be a trade union at all, whether academic work is comparable to other forms of labour–and whether university lecturers have a moral right to take industrial action! While some things have changed in these five decades, there is still a gap in consciousness and understanding of industrial relations to be bridged. That being said, young workers, often in highly precarious conditions of work, eagerly enter these conversations and seek ways to engage actively in union work.
Furthermore, IFUT members have the recent memory of the BIMM Music Institute dispute as a reference point–the atmosphere at this year’s National Conference when the emergency motion on local bargaining was presented was not unlike the atmosphere last year when the report on IFUT’s industrial action at BIMM. An important reminder of the power of the union, and the range of actions a union can take, it shifts the perception of the possible toward organising and collective action.
The Govt is out there conditioning the public to turn against public sector workers arguing any pay increases will hit public finances and services, what do you think of this?
A concerted effort from all unions organising public sector workers leaves little space for successful antagonisation of the unions and the workers by the public. The failures of the Government in managing funds for public good are not only well documented, but also converted into popular cultural references inducing well-substantiated distrust in Government’s intentions. Cultural memory goes beyond the present mismanagement as well, with effects of past austerity measures visible in our infrastructure, services, as well as our present payslips and public sector agreements.
Why can the Govt find money for VAT cuts for McDonalds but not for workers pay?
It has never been about inability to find money, it has always been about making the informed decision not to put it into workers pay. That decision is a clear signal to everyone out there who listens–Ireland is safe for business, the workers are contained.
What do public sector pay and conditions mean for private sector workers?
I’d widen this question a bit, and say that a union success in improving public sector pay and conditions is an important structural contribution for private sector workers as an act of regaining union power–and that a union failure in public sector negotiations would be another blow to unions organising workers in private sector as well. The employers in the private sector are lobbying hard with the Government both to disenfranchise their workforce and to deregulate their work practices: a pushback on Government’s public sector positions has to be seen as a part of a wider front against exploitation of the worker. Direct economic effects of public sector pay and conditions, of course, also make a quick ripple through the private sector mediated through capital. The public sector frontline has a lot to fight for.
