THE GROUP representing soldiers, sailors and air crew, PDforra, has warned it will not be “threatened and silenced” by the Department of Defence’s insistence it leave a newly formed workers’ alliance opposed to pay cuts.
Senior PDforra officials have said their members wanted to become involved with the 24/7 Front Line Services Alliance to vent their frustration at reductions in pay rather than undermine the military’s politically neutral role in Irish society.
PDforra general secretary Gerry Rooney described as “regrettable” the decision by the department to write to the association informing it that it was banned under law from taking part in any workers’ alliance.
“It was excessive and characterises our actions as unlawful,” Mr Rooney told delegates at PDforra’s annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, yesterday.
“PDforra did not become involved to engage in industrial action. PDforra will always comply with the law and there will be no involvement in industrial action.”
The association would now engage in a campaign of its own to raise its members’ concern about the erosion of pay and conditions within the Defence Forces because of the recession.
The 24/7 alliance is made up of groups representing frontline workers such as gardaí, nurses and prison officers. They have come together to fight any attempts to reduce their pay, particularly their allowances for working anti-social hours.
However, members of the Defence Forces are banned from industrial action and PDforra’s involvement in a workers’ alliance led to concerns within the department. Officials from the department wrote to the organisation saying the Defence Act specifically prohibited it from standing with other representative bodies or unions in any joint campaign.
Mr Rooney said PDforra had been informed in the correspondence that the association was entitled only via the military’s conciliation and arbitration process to raise issues of concern. If this was the case, there would be no point to PDforra’s existence, he said.
PDforra president, Willie Webb, said his association had been “threatened and silenced” when it tried to vent its members’ frustrations.
“We saw no threat to the State in affiliating to a group of like-minded workers who were experiencing the same conditions and hardships as ourselves,” he said.
Members of the Defence Forces were concerned about levies and a range of other mooted cutbacks as well as the moratorium on recruitment and promotions.
Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieut Gen Dermot Earley said that while PDforra could not be allowed to remain within the alliance, none of its rights to speak publicly on a range of issues and lobby for its members’ interests had been curtailed. PDforra had direct access to Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea, and through him to the Cabinet. This access for a representative body was “very special”.
Mr O’Dea said he had “no problem with representation” for Defence Forces’ members. However, legislation specifically prohibited military personnel aligning themselves with workers’ representatives groups, such as the alliance.