Siptu members expected to back public service pay deal

About 300,000 public sector employees will be close to securing pay rises of up to 7.4 per cent if members of the country's largest trade union Siptu support a new pay deal by the time voting ends Wednesday.

Votes will be counted on Thursday on whether the union, which counts more than 70,000 staff across the public service among its membership, has backed the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020.

The backing of Siptu's members would put support for the public service pay deal at close to an overall majority of the votes required by the affiliated member unions of the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to approve the agreement between the unions and the Government.

Each union is given a weighted vote based on the size of its membership. The expected support of Siptu members and the backing of Impact, which has already overwhelmingly voted for the deal, means that the agreement is near a majority of support amongst the public service unions.

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Siptu did not wish to comment on whether its members, who have been voting on the agreement since July 3rd, would back the proposed agreement that extends the Lansdowne Road Agreement, but sources familiar with the membership said the likelihood was that it would be accepted.

Big surprise

“It would be a big surprise if it was voted down,” said a well-placed source. “That is not to say that everyone is 100 per cent happy with it, but on balance people would be in favour of it, particularly for its protection of lower-paid workers against outsourcing to outside companies that have lower labour costs.”

The union, which carries about 25 per cent of the voting power on ICTU’s public service committee, encouraged its members to support the pay deal in June.

The pay agreement will cost €880 million over three years, and will reverse most pay cuts imposed after the economic crash and improve pension entitlements for newer recruits to the public service.

Members of the Impact union, which represents 60,000 workers and carries about 20 per cent of the voting power on ICTU’s public service committee, voted last month by a margin of 77 per cent to 23 per cent to support the agreement.

The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants has already voted by a majority of 82 per cent for the agreement.

Majority

The support of the Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU), which has already urged its members to back the deal, would be enough to carry an overall majority for the deal with Siptu’s backing.

The CPSU, which represents about 10,000 lower-paid civil servants, is scheduled to vote on the agreement between August 28th and September 15th.

Should Siptu members back the agreement, the backing of CPSU next month would push the support for the agreement towards a clear majority among the public service unions.

Supporters of the agreement suffered a setback when the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation overwhelmingly rejected it last month because the deal failed to eliminate a two-tier pay system that remunerates newer recruits, hired since 2012, some 10 per cent less than their longer-serving counterparts.