Irish public sector pay talks end without deal, unions threaten 11 November strike

Talks end without agreement

Government representatives and union leaders finished a session at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Friday evening, 30 October, with no deal on a new public service pay agreement. Kevin Callinan, general secretary of the Fórsa union, said the distance between the two sides could not be closed at that stage. No further sessions were planned over the weekend, so the union side intends to brief the other public service unions on Monday, 2 November. Callinan said he did not see a deal that members could back in a ballot:

“It doesn't seem possible at this moment that we're going to be able to reach an agreement that we could confidently put to our members in a ballot”

Asked whether the WRC could bring both sides back under a committee led by Kevin Foley, which was set up to clear the obstacles that stopped talks from starting, Callinan said the decision belonged to the WRC. He added that the unions would take part in any process that is started.

Pay gap at the centre of the dispute

The unions have set out three demands: closing the gap between pay rises and inflation over the past five years, a pay increase for the second half of this year, and protection against inflation spikes during the life of any new deal. The previous pay deal expired in June, and exploratory discussions collapsed before formal talks got going. Officials from the Department of Public Expenditure sat down with union negotiators at the WRC on Monday, 19 October. Tánaiste Simon Harris has said he is hopeful an agreement can be reached in the coming days, after intensive engagement at the WRC.

Background: the 14 October strike and work-to-rule

More than 300,000 public workers, including nurses and teachers, took part in a national strike on 14 October. Schools closed, thousands of non-emergency hospital appointments were rescheduled, and driving tests and most court hearings were cancelled. A second day of action was put on hold once talks began, but industrial action continued, with several sectors carrying out work-to-rule. A rank-and-file gardaí work-to-rule over their conditions is also scheduled to run from Tuesday, 10 November to Saturday, 14 November, a period that overlaps with the planned strike.

The proposed strike on 11 November

If no draft agreement is available when the ICTU Public Services Committee meets on Monday, 2 November at 10am, the committee will consider a nationwide strike on Wednesday, 11 November. Callinan, who chairs the committee and represents 19 unions, said that action would take the form of a demonstration in Dublin plus demonstrations in regional centres. Seven days' notice must be given for a strike, so arrangements would have to be made during the week of 2 November. In health the required notice is generally three weeks, but unions believe the original notice served last month and the continuing work-to-rule cover them. The strike would fall the day before European leaders are due in Dublin for a European Political Community meeting, the biggest event of Ireland's EU presidency.

Outlook

Callinan said he could not be certain a deal would come this week or over the weekend. He put the position bluntly:

“If we fail to reach an acceptable agreement by the weekend, it leaves unions with no alternative but to escalate the action.”

The Monday meeting will determine whether a draft exists and what the unions do next, and the 11 November strike date remains conditional on that outcome.