Doctors, nurses, gardai, firefighters and air traffic controllers are among thousands of public service workers claiming £100 an hour for providing emergency cover on New Year's Eve.
The claim has been put forward by the Public Service Group of Trade unions, a loose alliance set up to negotiate staffing and pay levels. Most of the unions involved are members of the ICTU, but the group also includes the Garda Representative Association.
Its co-ordinator is the industrial relations director of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, Mr David Hughes. He said the aim of the group was to have centralised negotiations on millennium pay, as this would be fairer and simpler than each group negotiating on its own.
The package finally agreed would have to be attractive enough to ensure that people were prepared to work the millennium on a voluntary basis, he said.
The claim is for £100 an hour, on top of normal rates, for everyone required to work between 8 a.m. on Friday, December 31st, 1999, and 8 a.m. on Sunday, January 2nd, 2000.
In some parts of the private sector, such as banking, payments of more than £2,000 have been negotiated. However, Mr Hughes said centralised talks in the public service are "going nowhere".
The group will meet on Tuesday to review the situation. Mr Hughes said if management failed to respond before the meeting, the Government could face a major confrontation.
IMPACT, one of the main unions involved, has already decided to begin a strike ballot of 16,000 members in the health services next week, because of the failure of health service managers to respond to the claim. It represents paramedics, nurses, social workers, clerical and administrative staff in the health services.
The national secretary for IMPACT's health services division, Mr Kevin Callinan, said unless health service management put proposals on rostering and bonus payments immediately, his members would not provide cover during the critical 48-hour period.
"It's now just five weeks until the Christmas break and no firm arrangements have been made for the holiday," he said last night. "Staff do not know whether they are expected to work or how much they will be paid. Services are bound to suffer unless this is dealt with in the next couple of weeks."
He said health managers had told employees last March that they should be on standby to work over the millennium, but no offer had been put forward.
Some of the other unions in group are also contemplating strike ballots. Besides IMPACT and the GRA, the group includes SIPTU, the Irish Nurses' Organisation, the Irish Medical Organisation, the Prison Officers' Association and civil service unions such as the Public Service Executive Union and the Civil and Public Service Union.