Croke Park pay deal wins union backing
The Croke Park deal on public sector pay and reform was effectively secured tonight after two of the country’s most powerful unions backed it.
Impact, the largest public sector union, and Siptu, the largest union, both threw their weight behind the pact.
Umbrella group Congress is expected to ratify the deal at a meeting on Tuesday.
Despite his union’s strong support, Shay Cody, Impact general secretary designate, said he believed workers had yet to be convinced of management’s ability to deliver better public services.
“The union now has a strong mandate to operate this agreement in the interests of public services, the people who depend on them, and the Impact members who deliver them,” he said.
“It has not been easy to achieve this agreement, and the months and years ahead will be equally challenging.”
Impact’s members, who had been expected to support the pact on pay and reform, voted three to one in favour.
Meanwhile, Siptu general president Jack O’Connor said the deal protected jobs and advances the interests of the citizens of Ireland.
“This is in sharp contrast to the Government’s continuing policy of placating the rich at all costs which brought about the economic crisis in the first place and which is graphically evident in its mishandling of the banking debacle,” Mr O’Connor said.
Of Siptu members who voted, 65% supported Croke Park.
Mr O’Connor called for public sector management to do their bit to secure reforms while at the same time respecting workers.
He added: “The onus now passes on to those at the top of society who have contributed little or nothing to the resolution of our economic problems while working people and those who depend most on public services have carried the lion’s share of the burden.”
Trade union chiefs will meet at the Congress Public Services Committee on Tuesday with each official casting weighted votes for or against the deal based on how their membership voted.
Impact and Siptu join major unions including the largest teaching union, the INTO, in supporting Croke Park along with the Public Service Executive Union and the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants.
The deal was negotiated by senior trade unionists and Government trouble-shooters under intense pressure at GAA headquarters more than two months ago and set out plans to freeze pay until 2014. It also sets out proposals to reverse pay cuts and a Government commitment to avoid compulsory redundancies.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (Inmo) rejected it. The union, with more than 40,000 members, joined the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (Asti) and the Teachers Union of Ireland – a total of more than 72,000 workers - in fighting the agreement.
Craft workers from the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) and lower-paid public servants with the Civil Public and Services Union have refused to back the deal.
In a letter sent to Impact branches this afternoon, Mr Cody said: “Inertia is now the biggest challenge facing public service reform and people who use and deliver public services need to see early evidence that this agreement is going to deliver for them.
“We need an indication from Government that it will challenge senior public service managers and require them to start acting now to work the agreement, deliver real reforms, and involve staff and unions from the very beginning as they are required to under this deal.
“The Taoiseach should begin by calling all the key public service management players together, with staff representatives, to set out how the reforms are going to be driven and staff involved.”
Mr O’Connor added: “Government must now face up to the obligation to stop insulating the rich and tax wealth and trophy houses in budget 2011.”
