Garda sergeants, inspectors warn ‘Blue Flu’ action possible over rosters dispute

More than 200 Garda sergeants and inspectors held a “day of action” protest march to Garda Headquarters at the Phoenix Park in Dublin on Monday, in a growing row over proposed new Garda rosters.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) also said at the event it would not be taking up an invitation by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to move the dispute into the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

AGSI general secretary, Antoinette Cunningham, said it seemed “funny” to her that Mr Harris had ruled out the possibility the rosters dispute would escalate to a so-called “Blue Flu”, meaning Garda members ringing in sick on the same day, in an action that would be a strike in all but name.

“The commissioner doesn’t represent the membership, we represent the membership,” she said. “So, they’ll tell us what they want to do and we’ll, in turn, will tell him. Whether he deems that unsuitable or not, that’s a matter for himself. It’s the job of us, as representatives, to tell him, not for him to tell us.”

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Ms Cunningham added Mr Harris had not “honoured” his promises and was now trying to “impose” new rosters on Garda staff.

She accused him of “not giving us a chance” to resolve the dispute internally before going asking the WRC to get involved. AGSI was going to ask Minister for Justice Simon Harris “to step into this dispute now” as he shared in the responsibility of resolving it.

“[The commissioner] hasn’t listened to us and that’s what over 250 people turned up today when we only asked 100,” Ms Cunningham said of the much bigger than expected group of sergeants and inspectors participating in the march. She added she had “spent the last few days asking people not to turn up” as so many of her members want to “vent their frustration and anger” at Mr Harris on the rostering issue.

The Irish Times was awaiting comment from Garda Headquarters and the Department of Justice on Agsi’s comments on Monday.

The association said the new rosters Mr Harris wants to introduce would involve 47 additional working days for some Garda members, because their shifts would be shorter. Shift patterns would involve working seven days on followed by a two-day break and another seven-day working block, rather than six days on and four days off.

“That is not family friendly, it doesn’t have an appropriate work-life balance and it’s unsuitable in relation to professional and private lives,” Ms Cunningham said, adding it would result in growing “fatigue” levels across the force.

When it was put to her that Mr Harris said his senior management team had been negotiating for 3½ years with the Garda staff bodies about new rosters, with no agreement reached, and the time had come for the WRC to be used, Ms Cunningham said that was not an accurate summary of the dispute.

“This matter placed into dispute by the Garda Commissioner only on January 4th this year,” she said. “There has been one meeting of the internal dispute process where he has not given AGSI a chance to make our submissions. He hasn’t been negotiating with us for 3½ years. One meeting is not a fair chance to resolve the issue internally.”

While AGSI had “nothing to fear” by going to the WRC, after Mr Harris contacted the commission seeking its assistance, it “would be a premature move” to go there, especially when she believed the dispute could be resolved internally. While AGSI had attempted to speak with Mr Harris several times about rosters he “continues to reject that there’s a problem, he continues to reject there is an issue with morale”.

AGSI is now planning a second day of action, which would also take the form of a public demonstration or event. It is not ruled out the possibility its members, deciding on an individual basis, could withdraw their service at some point, a strike in all but name. It is illegal for Garda members to organise a strike, though individual members deciding to call in sick – a so-called Blue Flu – is not illegal as they would be acting of their own individual volition.

The association’s national executive plans to meet next week and decide what form its second day of action should take. In four weeks AGSI would hold its annual conference in Galway, where longer term plans would be discussed. However, this could be averted if Mr Harris decided in the next month to re-engage internally with the association, AGSI said.

Last Monday, AGSI members met in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and decided to engage in several “days of action”, the first of which was the march to Garda Headquarters. Within hours of that meeting, Mr Harris confirmed his plans to introduce the new rosters in mid April were now postponed until September.

He also said he had contacted the WRC, which had agreed to make itself available to help resolve the dispute. Mr Harris believes the new rosters he wants to introduce better meet modern policing demands, including having more members on duty when there is most demand for policing from the public.

Both AGSI and the Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents rank and file gardaí, are opposed to new rosters, which would see the scrapping of 12-hour shifts – and four days on, four off shift patterns – introduced for the pandemic period. Those shifts are seen as family friendly and predictable.

They have allowed Garda members reduce the number of days they are in work, thus cutting down on costs associated with travelling to work, such as fuel. At the same time, because they are working 12-hour shifts, they are paid more unsocial hours allowances.

Under the new plans, for most Garda members the number of hours they work each week would be spread over a larger number of days, because shifts would be shorter, including eight-hour and 10-hour shifts. It is estimated some Garda members would lose up to €2,000 in allowances for unsocial hours.

In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters said Mr Harris believed “three years of discussions” with the Garda staff bodies “including under the independent chair of an industrial relations expert for 13 months” had exhausted all internal mechanisms. As a result, he believed it was appropriate the WRC now be involved.

“The WRC has since been in contact with the parties and has extended an invitation to attend a conciliation conference,” the reply added. “In the interest of finding a resolution, it is hoped that the associations will give favourable consideration to accepting this invitation.”

Last week Mr Harris sad he believed the roster he wanted to introduce “meets members’ needs in terms of predictability, but also meets the public’s need in terms of response to incidents, investigation of crime, and also the work that Gardaí want to do in terms of victim engagement and maintaining a relationship with victims”.