THE GOVERNMENT is not prepared to reverse pay cuts already introduced for staff in the public service in return for co-operation with reform plans, official sources indicated yesterday.
The move comes as up to 70,000 members of Siptu are today set to join in the industrial action being carried out by other public service unions in protest at the pay cuts introduced in the budget.
Separately lower-paid civil servants, who are members of the Civil Public and Services Union, are expected to agree to step up their campaign of action when its strike committee meets today.
Yesterday trade union leaders signalled that they wanted to get back into talks with the Government to seek a deal that would cover both public pay policy, including the salary cuts announced in December, and the transformation programme for the public service which Ministers maintain is a priority.
However, while the Government is anxious to meet the unions to discuss the transformation of public services, it seems unprepared to give a commitment to reverse the pay cuts introduced in the budget as any form of trade-off in return for reforms.
A Government spokesman said last night that it was prepared to engage in meaningful discussions with the trade unions in order to get public service reforms that would benefit everybody
Last week Tánaiste Mary Coughlan twice refused to rule out the possibility of further cuts in public service pay. She said nobody in Government or in the Opposition was in a position to say what adjustments were needed in the context of next year’s budget
In December the Government rejected controversial proposals put forward by the trade union movement which would have seen staff take 12 days unpaid leave and co-operate with widespread reform plans in return for an agreement to maintain pay levels. Instead it opted to introduce across-the-board pay cuts for more than 300,000 public service staff.
Yesterday Peter McLoone, the general secretary of Impact and chairman of the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said that a majority of union members wanted a negotiated solution to the dispute over pay.
However he told The Irish Timesthat public pay policy would have to be part of the agenda for any new talks with the Government.
He said that pay policy was currently governed by two pieces of emergency legislation and that both contained provisions that allowed the Government to modify its stance.
The president of Siptu, Jack O’Connor, said 69,700 members of his union in the public service would be joining in the industrial action from today. He said that this action by members in the health, education, local authority and State agency sectors would include a ban on co-operation with change and a work-to-rule.
He said that the industrial action was “not designed to start a war but rather to leverage negotiations”. However, he said that some elements of the Government appeared eager for confrontation.
So far the Government has adopted a “softly-softly” approach to the industrial action undertaken by public service staff.
However, last week The Irish Timesrevealed that the Department of Finance had drawn up a draft memo setting out options for the Cabinet including a ban on deductions of union subscriptions at source and the payment of staff who took time off work to attend union conferences if industrial action continued.
Yesterday the Sunday Tribunereported that the Government would suspend public service workers who refused to carry out duties.
Unions have warned of strikes if members were removed from the payroll as part of the current industrial action.
Government sources said last night that the Cabinet was expected to consider further the proposals drawn up by the Department of Finance.