THE GOVERNMENT must engage in meaningful talks with public sector unions about cost -saving measures ahead of the budget if conflict is to be avoided, general secretary of the Impact trade union, Peter McLoone has warned.
Mr McLoone said the Government seemed “hell bent” on pursuing a further reduction in public-sector pay, which it saw as the only means of lowering public expenditure. “Our message to Government is that they should seek an alternative way to effecting the public spending reductions which we all agree are necessary,” he said.
“We are arguing for a transformation in public service delivery to preserve the quality and range of public services while budgets decline . . . This would include identifying and cutting waste, changes in work practices and vastly increased productivity.”
Mr McLoone said time was of the essence and that a repeat of last January’s social partnership talks, which went on for five weeks without any agreement, would not be acceptable.
He said the Government had collapsed those negotiations and gone ahead and reduced pay in the public service.
He said public servants were not the cause of the budgetary crisis and that any attempts to cut their pay or pensions or to enforce redundancies in the sector would be resisted. Impact is currently balloting its 55,000 members for a mandate for strike action in the event the Government does decide to implement pay cuts.
Speaking at the launch of an Impact advertising campaign entitled “Public Services: Transformation Not Cuts”, Mr McLoone said recent criticisms of public servants by politicians, economists and business people appeared to be attempts to soften up members of his union for further pay cuts.
Mr McLoone said he hoped the advertising campaign, which is to cost some €450,000, would end “unrelenting and often ill- informed criticism” of public services, which had been “incredibly damaging” to the sector and the morale of those working in it.
Mr McLoone said singling public servants out for pay cuts was neither fair nor likely to resolve the State’s economic problems, which were caused by “unacceptable practice” in banking, finance, construction and property.
A Red C poll of 1,008 people carried out for Impact found that 52 per cent of people fear they will be personally hit by public expenditure cuts next year. Some 58 per cent of those polled believed spending cuts were necessary to reform the public sector, but 52 per cent disagreed with a proposition that public servants should take a pay cut.
