REFORM PLANS for the Civil Service involving the elimination of time off for staff to cash cheques and the ending of privilege days at Christmas and Easter have been hit by internal rows between trade unions, documentation suggests.
Several weeks ago, the Department of Finance proposed that 30-minute bank time for staff would be abolished from this month and privilege days would be addressed next spring.
In a circular yesterday, the union representing lower-paid Civil Service staff, the CPSU, said it had objected to the separation of the issues by the department. It said this would mean its members would lose bank time immediately, but higher grade staff could avail of privilege days at Christmas.
CPSU general secretary Blair Horan said it was understood all along that the impact of the abolition of bank time would mainly fall on his members, while that for privilege days would be on higher grades. He said this was because higher grade staff had up to 31 days’ annual leave in addition to privilege days, while lower-paid staff had only the basic EU minimum of 20 days leave.
“We did set out a considered response to the Department of Finance on how both issues should be dealt with together. At a meeting with finance last week they took our views on board and agreed to set out their position on the privilege days in tandem with their proposals on bank time.
“Unfortunately, other unions representing the higher grades objected to finance setting out their position on privilege days before April of next year. This in our view was regrettable as it seemed to be saying that CPSU should start the process while they held on to the privilege days.”
Mr Horan said it was never the CPSU’s position that it was totally opposed to dealing with bank timeand said talks with the department would take place shortly.
