Schools could close for half or full days on a regional or county basis under an escalation of industrial action in the public service announced this morning.
In the health sector, workers are expected to engage in stoppages of two hours affecting different regions at different times.
Following a meeting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) public services committee this morning, chairman Peter McLoone said the unions were entering a new phase of industrial action which would involve the withdrawal of labour.
He said the form of work stoppages, which will involved some 300,000 public sector staff, were likely to vary to take account of different sectoral situations, and the unions’ practical judgments. Individual unions are expected to service notice of strike action and details of disruption over the coming day.
Speaking afterwards, Mr McLoone said the Government had yet to engage with unions in order to achieve a negotiated settlement. The unions had no option but to step up their action because of that failure to engage since industrial action began on January 25th, he said.
Mr McLoone said the objective of the unions’ campaign was to achieve a negotiated solution that would reverse the pay cuts, protect future pay and pensions, and avoid compulsory redundancies.
On RTÉ's News at One, Mr McLoone said everything had to be on the agenda in any talks with the Government, including future pay policy in the public service. But he said there was "no point" in unions going into negotiations where they knew in advance that their members would not accept the outcome.
The unions had to sit down with the Government and recognise that "however challenging the agenda is", they had to engage on a basis that had some possibility of finding acceptance. There was "still time" to do this, he said.
Mr McLoone said people wanted a public service that was responsive and efficient, but for this it needed a staff that was motivated. There was "a lot of anger, a lot of annoyance" at the way the Government had treated its employees, he said.
Today's meeting took place against the backdrop of comments by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan that Government politicians are being threatened by some unions involved in the dispute. Mr Lenihan said in an interview published yesterday that there was a suggestion that TDs and councillors who support the Government “would in some way be blacklisted by local authority staff”.
The Minister also said the State is not in a position to pay the salaries as they were last year. “The decisions have been made by parliament and we have made it very clear to the union side that there is no scope for restoring the reductions that have already been made”.