Unions looking at all options over effective 'pay cuts'

TRADE UNIONS:TRADE UNIONS will consider "all options" in developing a response to the cuts announced this week by the Government, Irish Congress of Trade Union (Ictu) general secretary David Begg said yesterday

Mr Begg said unions would not take any “self-defeating actions”, but they could not “walk away and see a major reduction in peoples’ standard of living.”

To do nothing would be “completely against the raison d’etre” of the trade union movement.

He urged the Government to use the timeframe before the public servants’ pension levy becomes legislation in March to look at it again, but he said that the “structural unfairness” of the levy was such that it would need much more than tweaking.

Flanked by Ictu vice-presdent and Siptu president Jack O’Connor, Siptu regional director Patricia King and Impact general secretary Peter McLoone at a press conference, Mr Begg read from a prepared statement which accused the Government of reneging on the framework document which was agreed last week as the basis for dealing with €2 billion in cuts needed this year.

He warned against a “knee-jerk response” to the new levy and said the unions were not against it in principle, but opposed its effects on low- and middle-income workers.

He acknowledged that industrial action could be self-defeating in bad economic circumstances, but added: “At the same time, we can’t passively walk away and say you can impose by fiat a very major reduction in our members’ standard of living and we have nothing to say about that.”

A full meeting of the Ictu executive is to take place in the coming days to develop a strategy in response to the Government cuts package which would consider “all options”, including industrial action, if Taoiseach Brian Cowen intends to implement it without negotiation.

“Ultimately, if we have to have a campaign against it, we will have a campaign against it,” Mr Begg added.

The framework had set out fiscal stability, social solidarity and economic renewal as the goals of social partnership talks, but only fiscal stability was addressed by the Government in the measures it announced after the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Issues relating to private pensions, mortgage repossessions and executive pay were not addressed and measures to share the burden were “totally absent” from Government proposals, Mr Begg claimed.

Mr O’Connor said the pensions levy was in fact a pay cut and part of a strategy to drive down wages across the economy.

“We shouldn’t be using the term pension levy. It is a strategy that is about adjusting to the fall in sterling and the dollar by means of cutting pay across the economy and Ibec are part and parcel of it.”

Mr McLoone rejected the suggestion that the unions might have given tacit approval for the pension levy even while walking out on talks last Tuesday morning.

“The sense of hope that attended our talks during January when we produced the framework document has been replaced by a lot of anger and devastation out there about the way events have turned in the last 24 hours,” he said.

“There can be no suggestion that we had any understanding from Government that they could proceed with some nod from us, and that a few weeks down the line that we would resume discussion and ignore what has happened.”

Ms King said low-paid civil servants such as county council workers, cleaners or hospital porters will end up paying more into a pension than they will ever receive out of it.

“This was entirely loaded on the lower-paid area. It does not take long to figure out that it will take more than tweaking it to correct it.”