Civil servants want to reduce working week as part of new deal

Civil servants are to demand a rolling back of additional working hours imposed after the economic crash as part of any new public service agreement with the Government.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Fórsa trade union Civil Service divisional conference in Killarney, its chairman Niall McGuirk said reductions in working time, including the objective of returning public servants to their pre-crisis hours, should be among the priorities in talks on a successor to the existing Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA), which expires in 2020.

He said while limited concessions on the issue were achieved in the current deal, negotiated last year, “ members expected the union to seek further progress in future”.

The new Fórsa trade union is an amalgamation of Impact, the CPSU and the PSEU, and its Civil Service division conference will hear eight separate motions calling for a return to the working hours that were in place prior to the Haddington Road agreement in 2013.

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As part of this agreement, many staff across the public service saw their working week increased by two hours and 15 minutes.

Provisions introduced last year permitted staff to revert to their previous working hours in return for a corresponding proportionate reduction in salary, while a facility was also put in place to convert some leave into flexitime.

Addressing the conference on Thursday, Mr McGuirk said: “These measures help, but they are not a return to the pre-crisis situation. We know that there are competing demands on what can be achieved in negotiations. But working time cannot, and will not, fall off the table. I expect us to send a message to our negotiators that this issue means a lot to very many of our members.”

A key Fórsa objective

He said he fully supported the principle that “ working time must remain a key Fórsa objective – along with other priorities like new entrants, pay equity and wider improvements in income for all the people we represent”.

The conference heard public services unions had pressed the Government to reverse the requirement on staff to work additional hours as part of the negotiations that led to the agreement last year, but that Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe had refused on the grounds the measure was worth more than €583 million per year to the exchequer.

Mr McGuirk also argued that the question of public service pensions had been “settled” as a result of the introduction of an additional contribution by staff on earnings above €34,500 per year as part of the agreement reached last year.

“Let’s be clear – civil and public servants have always paid for their pensions. We pay PRSI – and for most public servants, the State pension that PRSI buys makes up the biggest part of retirement income. We pay an additional 6.5 per cent of salary towards our occupational pension.

“On top of that, we have paid the pension levy for almost a decade. This is an average 7 per cent contribution – more for higher earners – and many will continue to pay this as an ‘additional pension contribution’, even after the PSSA expires.

“This is a fair trade-off that should lay the matter of public service pensions to rest.”