Stepped-up public sector pay talks ‘could see deal in coming days’, say unions

A deal on public sector pay could be concluded in the coming days, but the union side wants any final agreement to include recognition of challenges to be tackled in areas of public services and staff numbers, says a leading union negotiator.

Fórsa’s Kevin Callinan, who chairs the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s public services committee, has expressed disappointment with the pace of progress made so far in the process but believes a determined push by the two sides starting on Monday could yield an agreement over the next couple of days.

If the talks are pushed into January, however, and a route to a deal is not clear, he says unions will consider what he describes as “an alternative strategy very quickly”.

That would mean balloting the union members that comprise the vast majority of the 385,000 public sector workers whose pay and conditions are the subject of the current talks, something both sides have previously made it clear they are keen to avoid.

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Amid talk there might be a prolonged attempt on Monday to find a breakthrough, Mr Callinan says the process has been frustratingly slow over the past three weeks with no talks yet on pay and no attempt to address issues like local bargaining, the quality of public services, the size of the public service providing them or the affordability of housing for those people, all cited as major concerns for the union side.

“Pay is obviously key,” he said on Sunday, “and I’m not saying we can solve these other issues in the context of pay talks but we should at least be trying to ensure that space is provided to address some those kinds of real challenges.

“People want better public services and yet the number of public servants hasn’t been increasing by much more than half of the size of the increase in the population. And then as we have seen it is increasingly hard to recruit, say, teachers in Dublin.

“We’re not saying there has to be a commitment to do A, B or C, but these are the sorts of issues that frame any agreement and we are looking for more of a commitment to recognise they are problems that we should be creating the sorts of mechanisms that might allow for them to be considered and addressed.

“If minds were put together to look at where the real problems are, and to think ahead about the next five years or so, I’m sure we come up with some worthwhile suggestions.”

On Friday, a spokesperson for Paschal Donohoe said the Minister, and Government, remains keen to reach a deal that provides “for continued investment in our public services and an approach to public sector pay that is fair, reasonable and affordable”.

Mr Callinan puts particular emphasis on the “fair” and acknowledges it will not become clear whether the two sides have a shared notion of what equates to until that aspect of talks gets under way.

He says the unions are likely to suggest a stepping-up of the pace of the talks when they resume on Monday morning in the hoping that really significant progress can be made in the coming days.

If that doesn’t happen, he says however, and a clear pathway to an agreement is not emerging, “then my feeling would be that public servants will either be voting in the new year on a proposed agreement with a pay element that is fair or on a campaign of industrial action intended to produce a fair outcome”.

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