A NURSING union leader has warned the Government that attempts to carry over pay rises due under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work into a new national agreement will be strongly resisted. The deputy general secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation, Mr Liam Doran says the date for implementing any pay deal agreed under the PCW remains June 1st, 1996.
The Department of Finance is understood to have told the public sector unions of its concern at "pay drift" under the PCW's local bargaining clause. It has warned the unions could lose retrospection on deals not finalised by the end of the year. It also wants unions to "credit" the Government for agreed increases.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, told a SIPTU regional conference in Dublin last Saturday that "high profile" disputes had resulted in pay increases which would "increase costs by way of drift beyond the period of the PCW itself. The Government will expect full credit for such costs in the current negotiations for a new national programme".
This is unacceptable, Mr Doran says. The long awaited Buckley Review on pay for hospital consultants is due next week, he adds. Media reports suggest it will recommend increases of around £7,000 a year for the State's 1,000 consultants. Their pay scale runs from £50,000 to £60,000.
"I have no doubt the awards in the review are based on the merits of the consultants' case," Mr Doran says. "However, such an outcome will only stiffen the resolve of the nurses to do whatever they feel it's necessary to do to win recognition for their own case.
"They see the consultants as a powerful lobby group and believe that is what they must become."
On Government's use of "pay drift" to claw back pay rises under a new national agreement, Mr Doran says this approach "can only further complicate negotiations. Placing further obstacles in the way will make a difficult situation much worse."
He questions how the Department of Finance can claim there was pay drift" when local restructuring deals under the PCW were self financing.
Attempting to deny retrospection would also been unfair to health workers in other grades, who have not yet been made productivity offers under the PCW. "Is it fair to say to them that, because they haven't been made an offer by the Government during the life of the PCW, they are not entitled to retrospection?"
The INO will hold a meeting of union activists in Jury's Hotel next Tuesday, followed by an executive meeting on Wednesday. Both meetings are expected to endorse a strike ballot, if there is no improved offer from the Government on the £50 million package rejected by nurses on November 11th.