Unions in Ireland renew pay talks

Last month, talks between the unions and government in Ireland restarted over government imposed pay cuts.

David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), warned that failure to reach an agreement this time would be “very, very bad”.

The background to the current negotiations is Ireland’s economic crisis and the government’s attempt to solve it by cutting public sector pay.

First, it imposed a pensions levy, costing public sector workers an average of 7.5% of their pay, in February 2009. Then, in December 2009, the government rejected the unions’ offer of 12 days’ unpaid leave this year. Instead it announced straight pay cuts — 5% for those earning up to €30,000 (about £27,000) and up to 8% for those on salaries of €125,000 (£112,500).

The unions responded with a campaign of industrial action which began with the withdrawal of all cooperation (see Labour Research February 2010, page 8), but which they promised would in time move to industrial action.

On 8 March, Peter McLoone, chair of the ICTU public services committee, announced that the campaign would now be escalated “to include the withdrawal of labour”, and, by 12 March, talks had restarted.

McLoone has said that the talks will need to deal with the issue of pay cuts to have any chance of success and he recognised that the negotiations, which are likely to last some weeks, would be “difficult and challenging”.