The State's largest civil service union will decide today whether to challenge Government pay policy head-on or use the benchmarking process to secure pay increases. In March, members of the Civil and Public Service Union voted by more than three to one to reject the 2 per cent cost-of-living increase negotiated between the social partners last December as inadequate.
Yesterday, the CPSU general secretary, Mr Blair Horan, said it was impossible to predict the outcome of the debate. Speaking from the opening session of the conference in Galway, he warned that regardless of the strategy adopted by members today the Government would have to accept major public service pay improvements.
He cited housing costs as a major source of discontent among low-paid clerical grades in the civil service. "Statistics show house purchases by salaried workers have fallen by a massive 44 per cent on the 1996 level thus excluding most of our members and many other public servants from the housing market."
Since 1974 house prices had risen by 1,916 per cent and GDP by 2,171 per cent, but a clerical officer's pay by only 801 per cent. "In 1974 two clerical officers could afford to buy an average priced house. Today, based on the normal income multiples, they are £100,000 short on capital.
"Even taking account of lower interest rates and higher disposable income, the average house is now quite clearly beyond their reach." The Government had not provided any real alternatives to the long-term accommodation needs of most young workers, Mr Horan said.
Government policy on decentralisation had also added to members' militancy, he said. "To date it has refused to give adequate consultation rights to the union on the issue. I will be making it clear here to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, that we will not feel bound to co-operate with decisions on decentralisation which are not in our members' interests and which are being taken without proper consultation.
"Social and economic criteria should be the principal considerations in decentralising services rather than political ones."