SERVICES to the public at Government offices throughout the Republic will be disrupted by a half day strike by 10,000 civil servants tomorrow.
The Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU) has called the strike in protest at the public service recruitment embargo. Other civil service unions have said their members will not do the work of their striking colleagues.
Among services affected will be the issuing of social welfare cheques, agricultural grants to farmers and refunds to taxpayers.
The union's general secretary, Mr John O'Dowd, said. We regret any inconvenience to the public. Our objective is to have the best service possible provided to the public, but by staff that have decent rates of paying decent career opportunities.
The strike, which begins at 1p.m., comes only three days before a CPSU special delegate conference to discuss a pay offer from the Government under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work (PCW). Negotiations between the union and the Department of Finance broke down last Friday.
The CPSU executive is expected to recommend rejection of the offer at Saturday's conference. If it is rejected, the industrial relations element to the PCW will almost certainly begin to unravel.
The restructuring clause of the programme was specifically drafted with the needs of the two main civil service unions in mind, the CPSU and the smaller Public Service Executive Union (PSEU). While the PSEU has accepted the pay offer, rejection by the CPSU will mean that follow on negotiations for local authorities, health boards and the semi state companies will also stall.
With SIPTU threatening renewed strike action in the hospitals next Friday, and 26,000 nurses expected to reject their latest pay offer by the end of the month, tomorrow's half day strike could presage a spring of industrial unrest.
However, the gap between the CPSU and the Department is understood to be relatively small. Both sides have agreed the overall structure for a pay deal but not the time scale for implementation.
The main feature involves absorbing clerical assistants into the higher paid clerical officer grade, but clerical assistants would have to wait 10 years before gaining the full benefit of any pay rise. The union wants the increases to be paid over a four year period.
The total cost of the deal is around £4 million. This is considerably less than the £70 million reported to be on offer to the teaching unions, even allowing for the disparity in numbers. There are around 35,000 teachers in the Republic, compared with 10,000 CPSU members.
CPSU members are in the lowest paid white collar grades in the civil service, and are overwhelmingly female. They earn a maximum of £230.52p a week after 11 years' service. The top of the clerical officers scale is £280.57p after 15 years' service.