"IF the gardai succeed in getting over 7 per cent, and refusing to give any productivity for it, then the local bargaining clause of Partnership 2000 is gone," one senior public service trade unionist said yesterday.
Another trade union leader said, "We are under constant pressure from members to push particular claims that are in breach of Partnership 2000 and we have consistently told them, `We have to live with the agreement.' If different rules are applied to the guards people might leave ICTU because they are better off outside, pushing their own agendas."
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, have been made well aware of how the trade unions feel about the Garda approach to "local bargaining" by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. To say it has been unconventional, in industrial relations terms, is an understatement.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA) was one of the first bodies to conclude a 3 per cent increase under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work (PCW). However, the package - which essentially rewarded older members and those with longer service with enhanced pensions, at the expense of younger members - proved deeply divisive. The result was the formation of the Garda Federation.
Ironically, the ICTU general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, played a central role in healing that divide. One of the incentives offered to the warring factions was that a reunited Garda Representative Association could revisit the local bargaining clause of the PCW and negotiate an additional pay rise.
Although this was a concession not granted to any affiliate of congress, trade union leaders accepted that the garda "had made a bit of a hames of it the first time". In the circumstances, they felt the GRA should not be denied a chance to put things right.
However, the ICTU, and particularly its powerful block of public service unions, also made it clear to the Government that such a revisitation must come within the range of settlements reached for other groups of public service workers. This meant the pay rise must fall roughly in the 7 per cent bracket and, secondly, that productivity was conceded to help keep the extra cost to the Exchequer within the overall 3 per cent ceiling.
As early as the annual conference of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland, last Easter, its general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, warned that his union would be watching "with great interest" the GRA negotiations.
Last week the general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Dan Murphy, warned at his union conference in Waterford that, if some public service workers received special awards, "all bets are off" on the next round of local bargaining. In his own colourful phrase, "Hell will be open to sinners."
The GRA members are not, of course, members of the ICTU. Indeed the GRA's own general secretary, Mr P.J. Stone, said on RTE yesterday that the Government should stand up to the trade union movement and give his members their due. The GRA's minimalist position appears to be a restoration of its basic pay rates in the public service pecking order to somewhere ahead of nurses and prison officers.
The nurses did particularly well out of the PCW, with increases conservatively estimated at 14.5 per cent. However, they conceded very significant productivity in return.
Trade union leaders also point out that the nurses had huge public sympathy for repositioning them within the overall pay structures and that their dispute arose against the backdrop of a pending general election. These are two potent factors not available to the GRA.
There is also amazement in the trade union movement that the GRA is not prepared to accept negotiations on productivity and flexibility as part of the 7 per cent. Some attribute the GRA approach to its isolation from the trade union movement, which has had to take account of the macro-economic effect of pay claims for decades.
If the GRA succeeds in winning significantly more than 7 per cent without strings attached, it will not mean the end of national agreements as we know them just yet. But as the next round of local bargaining negotiations begin in the public service, the 2 per cent limit on costs "will be out the window", as far as the unions are concerned. With it will go pay restraint, not just in the public sector, but in the private sector.