Pay increases due from last week to more than 10,000 Civil Service clerical officers have been withheld in a row over a new performance evaluation system.
Members of the Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU) also risk losing increases of 5.5 per cent already implemented under the terms of a the outgoing partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress.
The final 2.5 per cent rise under that deal was due to be paid on June 1st, but has been withheld by the Department of Finance.
The Department has acted because the CPSU is currently balloting members on whether to accept the new evaluation system.
Civil Service unions are already committed to implementation of the Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) under national partnership agreements.
An extension of the scheme, linking it to the payment of increments and to promotions, was agreed under the most recent programme, Sustaining Progress.
Negotiations on its detailed implementation last year resulted in a system under which a civil servant's performance can be given a rating of between "one" and "five" by management.
A minimum score of "two" is necessary to qualify for increments, and "three" to be eligible for promotion.
At the CPSU's annual conference in April, delegates voted overwhelmingly to condemn the union's executive for agreeing to the new evaluation system.
They passed a motion calling for a ballot on the scheme within two months.
The union's executive has now put that ballot in place, but is recommending that members vote to accept the new procedures.
CPSU general secretary Blair Horan said members were worried about how the new system would operate, but he was confident that unions had negotiated a good agreement.
"We would never let management walk away from an agreement and I am advising members that equally we must stick by our agreements," he said.
Department of Finance secretary general for public service management Eddie Sullivan told unions at a recent meeting that the CPSU's decision to hold a ballot in relation to PMDS was "of major concern".
He said for any union to repudiate an agreement already entered into would call into question the basis on which increases had been paid to its members under Sustaining Progress.
In a circular to CPSU members accompanying ballot papers, Mr Horan said it was clear from Mr Sullivan's comments that the department was not only withholding the 2.5 per cent increase due on June 1st, but that previous pay rises were also in question.
He also advised there was no possibility of renegotiating the new system. "The reality whether we like it or not is that payments under Sustaining Progress are linked to the [public service] modernisatation programme and this includes PMDS," he said.
CPSU members in the Civil Service earn between €20,000 and €35,000 a year. Losing the 2.5 per cent increase they are due would therefore cost them between €10 and €17 a week.
