LOWER-PAID civil servants voted strongly in favour of strike action last night over the introduction of the pension levy.
In the ballot of Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU) members, 83 per cent voted in favour of industrial action. Eighty-six per cent of the union’s 13,000 members took part in the vote.
The union will hold a one-day strike next Thursday, February 26th.The result shows “the anger and determination of civil servants to resist pay-cuts”, said CPSU general secretary Blair Horan.
About 4,000 lower-paid civil servants yesterday staged what is expected to be the first of a number of union demonstrations against the Government’s new pension levy for staff in the public sector.
At the rally at Leinster House, the president of the CPSU, Dennis Walsh, said members should tell the Government to take its hands out of their pockets. He said what the Government was seeking to introduce was not a pension levy but rather a pay cut. “We are not accepting it,” he added.
Union leaders were happy with the turnout and believe it augurs well for a good attendance at a major day of protest being organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) for this Saturday.
In his address to the demonstration, Mr Walsh said the Government should think again about its plans for the levy. “We are saying to Brian Lenihan make your firm decisions but make sure that they are fair decisions, make sure that they are good decisions.
“We will not put up with this, Mr Walsh said.
Blair Horan told the rally that the pension levy was “unfair, unwarranted and unjust”.
“We will play our part but lower-paid civil servants are not prepared to be targeted by this Government for savage pay cuts while top bankers bemoan the fact that their salary will be a mere € 2 million next year and get off scot-free,” he said.
Mr Horan said CPSU members had not received any bonanza from the Celtic Tiger boom years.
He also said that CPSU members had seen their last pay increase largely overtaken by rising inflation while the Government had reneged on the 6 per cent deal agreed last September.
He said that in addition to this, the Government was now seeking an average 6 per cent pay cut as part of the pension levy.
Meanwhile, the Association of Higher Civil Servants has told members that the Ictu protest represents an opportunity to display their anger at the levy “and put down a marker to Government not to single out public servants in order to get them out of a mess which is not of their making”.
Separately, the Teachers Union of Ireland said last night that it implored the Government to engage with Ictu in seeking a fairer way for all citizens other than through the pension levy.