At last: The Campaign Against the Pay Deal

national | worker & community struggles and protests | press release Wednesday July 05, 2006 14:54 by FG

Leaflets, website and meeting

Y'all,

The Campaign Against the Pay Deal

1. has begun;

2. is meeting again this Thursday in the Teachers Club, Parnell Square, Dublin, at 8 pm;

3. has produced a short (not short enough say some!) leaflet for a 'no' vote
(copied below for your edification - call us for hard copies for your trade
union colleagues);

4. is putting up a website at www. tradeunionactivists.org

5. is non-party

Towards 2016: eight good reasons to say 'no' to this bad deal.

1. Pay. Towards 2016 offers 4.4% per year (annualised). Annual inflation is
3.9%. Childcare inflation is five times the overall official rate and house
price inflation is nine times the rate. As the ICTU says, "many firms are
enjoying double digit profit levels". Government Ministers received five pay
increases in the six months to December last.

2. Ten long years. It is folly to tie ourselves to a complicated, elaborate
and restrictive agreement for ten years. The pay section lasts for three
years: twice the last deal.

3. The 'race to the bottom' could accelerate. SIPTU stayed away from the
talks for four months because no real protection was on offer. But
outsourcing (like at Independent Newspapers) is excluded from the new
procedure (Section 18) and is agreed to for the public sector. Section 18
only applies to compulsory redundancies: the Irish Ferries redundancies were
not compulsory. The procedure is a maze: the unions have to go through a new
panel, then the Minister who may refer it to the Labour Court. If it's found
that the redundancies are bogus and the employer goes ahead, the only
sanction is that they will not get the state rebate on statutory redundancy
compensation.
All it gives the workers is that they can take an Unfair Dismissals
claim: but most of these cases don't result in reinstatement. Towards 2016
would make the situation worse for the unions. To use the procedure the
union must show that it has cooperated with restructuring and must not take
industrial action. In another Irish Ferries SIPTU members could not occupy
the ships and SIPTU could not mobilise the magnificent solidarity marches.

4. Assault on Public Sector Workers. This deal is a watershed in that public
sector workers have to give substantial productivity in exchange for the
ordinary cost-of-living pay increases of the deal. While the last agreement
included productivity concessions this was in the context of the
implementation of benchmarking. Under this agreement the parties accept:
"Co-operation with the implementation of policies, initiatives and reforms
following Government decisions or the enactment of legislation (primary,
secondary or EU)". This basically requires cooperation with all government
decisions. If there's disagreement "staff will co-operate with the changes
while the issue is being so processed." Contracts are to be renegotiated and
performance management schemes are to be implemented. Working hours are to
change with workers forced to work unsocial hours. All workers are to vote
on specific changes which only affect some workers. Outsourcing and the use
of agency workers is given the go ahead.

5. Binding arbitration again. Towards 2016 carries over from Sustaining
Progress the requirement for unions to accept the verdict of the Labour
Court on inability to pay claims, disputed breaches of the agreement and on
whether changes being sought by employers are 'normal and ongoing changes'
which must be allowed.

6. A slap in the face to SIPTU. During the 'partnership' talks themselves
the government snubbed SIPTU by deciding to privatise Aer Lingus. During the
talks it was announced that the Great Southern Hotels are to be sold and
that the Bank of Ireland will dismantle its pension scheme.

7. Social wage scam. The 60 pages of social provisions in the deal are
mostly padding. As the Irish Times editorial of June 16th says: "As on
previous occasions, however, the targets set are largely aspirational and
accord in broad outline with existing Government policies. Their
implementation will rely on the buoyancy of the State's finances". The
10,000 affordable houses promised in the last deal were never delivered!

8. Nothing on Pensions. The deal gives no protection against the current
assault on defined benefit pension schemes and shelves the long-awaited
national mandatory pension schemes into a Green Paper discussion document.

Campaign Against the Pay Deal

087 6775468 / 087 2839964

www.tradeunionactivists.org

A more detailed briefing on the raw deal is to be had at the Other Press section of your very own Indymedia Ireland.