PROSPECTS FOR agreement between the Government and public service unions on the pay and reform agreement now look grim. Union members have yet to vote on the issue but seem likely to back the recommendations of their leaderships. Seven affiliated and two non-affiliated unions are now opposed while four have urged support.
Although Siptu’s executive has come out grudgingly in favour, and the key Impact union will decide its position today, the numbers suggest the deal is set for rejection when the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) public service committee comes to vote.
That public servants should be tempted to vote down an agreement regarded by most of their fellow citizens as necessary, inevitable, and a lifeline to the public service, is understandable. Many regard it as akin to turkeys voting for Christmas, and remain deeply resentful over what they see as being scapegoated to pay for a crisis not of their making. Many will certainly hurt.
It is easy to vote No. But what union members are being asked in the ballots, in truth, is not simply whether they approve of the deal. Clearly they do not. They are being asked implicitly whether, notwithstanding that reality, they will fight to prevent its implementation. And whether they believe such a fight, involving industrial action, has any prospect of success against a Government that has so few options. Few believe renegotiation has any realistic prospect. So, do members really have an appetite for prolonged confrontation? Nor is it clear that unions promoting a No vote have it either.
Jack O’Connor, Siptu’s hard-headed president, has clearly made that assessment of the balance of forces and morale and is unwilling to urge his troops into an unwinnable war. He bluntly says the proposed deal is simply “the best of the options” and argues that elements of the agreement, notably on pay, no compulsory redundancies, and outsourcing, provide important safeguards. No-one imagines O’Connor likes the deal.
What then, if the deal is rejected? Where next? In truth the Government has no choice. The question inevitably arises of pressing ahead with the badly needed cost-saving reforms, from redeployments to working practices, without union consent. That will not be easy and inevitably involve weathering disruptive confrontations.
But the Government would mitigate union opposition by publicly committing itself unilaterally to the Croke Park deal’s terms, not least its pay and jobs provisions, and by extending to unions an invitation to participate, if “under protest”, in the extensive consultation and implementation framework that is part and parcel of it.
That would create a genuine dilemma for unions. Siptu’s statement on Tuesday night rightly argues that “unquestionably it is better for our members to be in a position to influence and shape the process”.
The same question could arise with rejection. The challenge will lie in pragmatic union leaders managing unrealistic expectations that this deal can actually be defeated and working to salvage the best they can to fight another day.