Croke Park II… March 5, 2013
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
The government’s actions on CPII are, without doubt clever. Cynical but clever. The side deals will come as an unwelcome surprise, and one that may sideline some of the anger that is developing amongst more militant sectors of the unions. And according to the SBP it’s a case of not only, but also…
The government may not implement the full €1 billion savings under Croke Park II if trade unions sign up to the centralised deal.
Senior sources told this newspaper that the government would withhold €130 million in incentives from the €1 billion savings as a “sweetener” to persuade unions to support of the deal.
But if the majority of public service unions in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions vote to reject the deal, then emergency legislation for the full €1 billion in cuts will be introduced.
Someone is thinking through this and working out strategies to corral union memberships and it remains to be seen how effective they are. What is clear is that the overall approach echoes that taken in relation to workers more generally, by dividing them up into sectoral groups and ensuring that unity of response and action is made more difficult. We saw this with the very very deliberate approach of Fianna Fáil in the first part of the crisis to the public and private sector – an approach that was, I would argue, enormously successful in setting the narrative.
So in a sense where is the surprise? Croke Park II has been coming for a very long time. As someone who works amongst PS workers the sentiment was one of resignation rather than a belief that the status quo would be maintained.
And there’s a lot of use of the stick as well…
In a radical departure, militant frontline unions that walked out of the talks could yet face emergency legislation to impose the more punitive cuts to Sunday premium pay originally proposed by the government rather than the enhanced deal. In addition, the compensating measures would not be available to unions outside the deal.
Union sources also said that concessions won by the unions which stayed in the talks – such as the maintenance of the existing 45km limit for redeployment – could be withdrawn from rebel unions. That would leave their members facing redeployment within the government preferred limit of 100km.
But note who is being quoted as a ‘source’ here, those inside the unions. And the SBP suggests that Howlin has had ‘private briefings’ presumably with the unions on the matter.
What’s depressing is that given the lead in time to CP II the unions have from the off been reactive even – perhaps particularly – within the terms they themselves have defined they would engage upon. Or to put it another way, they’re not even any good at carrying through the minimalist approach they cleave to.
In such a context is it any wonder that there’s such a strange combination of passivity and anger?
Still, I’m interested in what people think is the temperature of their workplaces in the PS in relation to CPII.
Union Branch Chairs Call Rally to Oppose Croke Park 2
Vote “NO” to Croke Park 2. Defend Education. Defend Public Services.
A grass-roots rally of public servants, both serving and retired, in the education sector will take place in the
Gresham Hotel Dublin at 12:00 on this Saturday 9th March 2013. All public servants are very welcome to come along.
The focuses of the rally will be on:
• securing a “NO” vote to Croke Park 2 in as many unions as possible
• the need for unity amongst all public servants, both serving and retired, in the face of the on-going attacks on us, and
• the way forward to better representation and mobilisation of public servants
• sending a message to our unions, to ICTU and to the Government that this so-called agreement will not be accepted
• For real equalisation of scales for new entrants!
This rally is not called by the Executive of any union and has absolutely nothing to do with ICTU, which clearly no longer represents public servants at all.
Please attend and advertise the rally to all other public servants you know, both within the Education Sector and outside it: All public servants are very welcome to come along.
The intention is to show our own union leadership and ICTU that in the absence of representation from them, we can and will mobilise ourselves.
We urge you to attend.
Regards,
Martin Marjoram (TUI Branch Chair IT Tallaght)
Michael Carr (TUI Branch Chair Dublin Colleges)
Gregor Kerr (INTO District 14)
Paddy Healy (TUI chair Dublin Retired Members Association)
Maria Parsons (TUI Branch Chair IADT Dun Laoghaire)
Claus Derenda (TUI Branch Chair IT Carlow)
Gerald Mills (IFUT UCD)
Richard Crowley (TUI Branch Chair Dundalk IT)
Thomas Dooley (TUI Acting Branch Secretary Dundalk IT)
Andrew Phelan (ASTI)
Kevin Farrell (TUI Executive, Area 15)
Eddie Conlon (TUI Executive, Area 16)
Niall Smyth (INTO)
Paul Farrell (TUI IT Tallaght)
Ronan Callanan (TUI Dublin City PP)
Could we get an indication please of what a teacher on top of scale is earning on average including all the allowances? I read in the IT that about 25% of INTO members would be earning over 65K and would be hit with the high earning penalty. What information we tend to get though on forums like this tends to be either exclusively rhetoric or at a push seemingly the most carefully selected of the worst cases. A bit more solid and reliable information on income levels in general should be seen as helpful for all workers to evaluate.
Hey richotto, rather than making insulting generalisations about this site why don’t you go and do that work for yourself? And by all means bring it back here.
He might ask the Billy Goats Gruff about their increments while he’s at it.
Considering he has made the assertion that all public sector workers are overpaid and represent a protected, elitist grouping, one might have assumed that he is already in possession of this information.
The article by Brian Mooney mentioned by crocodileshoes brings the required clarity, ab average teacher can expect to be on 65k, a standard of living which would be in a different world to most private sector workers. I admit I’m perhaps too cynical and not sufficiently respectful at times here but I’ve seen a lot of coyness in left wing circles around IR disputes about what PS professionals are getting or on that way. Also the attempt to equate the grievances of highly paid professionals with much lower paid PS workers is giving the whole sector a bad name.
“The article by Brian Mooney mentioned by crocodileshoes brings the required clarity, ab average teacher can expect to be on 65k”
That’s not what the article says. Try reading it again. It’s a bit rich to criticise this blog and others for being coy or carefully selecting the worst cases if you’re not going to make the effort needed to understand the information that’s put before you.
In relation to high pay, however, here’s a question for you: if you are earning over 100,000 euro in this country, are you more likely to be working in the private sector and the public sector?
+1 smiffy
In reply to Smiffy I did say a teacher can expect as in the normal incremental course, The quote from the article is “A teacher at the top of the 25 point scale holding a special duties post which involves roles such as organizing exams can expect to earn 65k.” He as a practicing teacher leads the article with “Croke Park 2 is a very good deal for teachers”. The holiday regieme uniquely long and generous in the world is also protected.
I agree on the point about greed in the private sector. The only group of workers who can cliam clean hands when it comes to inequality and how things have evolved in the Celtic Tiger years in my opinion are those earning under 50k public or private. As you go higher up the unequal income distribution has tended to be brought about by some form of abuse of power and thats across the board public and private, groups following relentlessly their narrow sectional interest. Is it any wonder theres so little solidarity at the end of that process.
Just on the special duties posts (my other half’s a teacher): incumbents get to retain them and the additional pay that goes with them. However, when they retire, the posts remain officially unfilled although other members of staff are then leaned on to fulfill the special duties – but without getting the extra pay.
CP2 would be “a very good deal for teachers” if it abolished the two-tier salary structure that penalises new entrants. But I must have missed the news bulletin that said this would be happening.
Richotto,
Yes, Mooney said that a teacher at the top of a 25 point scale also doing extra duties could receive 65K. That’s not the same as saying that that’s what the average teacher receive, as you claimed.
Also, when he says that the deal is a good one for teachers (an arguable point) he is quite obviously not talking about those at the top of the scale. He’s talking about the majority of teachers, who are clearly not paid at those levels.
Frankly, I don’t think that 65K is an unreasonable amount of money to be paid as a teacher after 25 years. I don’t think that a desire to be paid a decent salary after decades of work constitutes ‘greed’ as you seem to. Neither do I think that all salaries should be capped at 50K, as you imply. I think that the solution to low salaries is to raise the standards of those at the lower end, while applying an equitable taxation system at the top.
[...] “The government’s actions on CPII are, without doubt clever. Cynical but clever. The side deals will come as an unwelcome surprise, and one that may sideline some of the anger that is developing amongst more militant sectors of the unions …” (more) [...]
As someone who’s active in my PS union, I’ve shared WbyS’s experience. This has been thought through. No appetite for strikes and the government knows it.
An interesting article in today’s Irish Times by Brian Mooney, on the effects of these cuts on secondary teachers, shows another aspect. The big losers are those experienced teachers who are at the top of the incremental scale and probably hold posts of responsibility. They’ve taken previous cuts without their being alleviated by increments, now earn over 65,000 and are therefore facing another 5.5% cut. If they work in secondary schools, they’ve had their teaching hours increased by 4 a week.
Many critics of PS unions accuse experienced senior staff of avoiding cuts and throwing newer, younger colleagues to the wolves. According to Mooney’s figures, these cuts will have minimal impact on teachers in early or mid career, the hardest hit being taken by senior and managerial staff.
What you quote mooney as saying is a valid enough way of describing the hits on those at or near the top of the scale, with promotional posts, but its not true that the hit on the rest will be minimal. The supervision payment is about 1800 and is paid disproportionately to the lower and mid earners. That could range from a 3% cut to about 6%.
Does anybody know what the significance is of the postponement of the decision by SIPTU’s executive on a recommendation?
They need more time to assess the mood of their members given the backlash since the details of CPII. I’d say today’s meeting was to set out the broad contours of the reaction from members and to get the views of organisers and other full timers. They’ll then, I think, tic-tac with Labour to see if there are any sweeteners that could be forthcoming to this or that part of the membership. They’ll probably have a good idea, at this stage, of how a vote might pan out among the different sections, grades etc. And they’ll, consequently, have a better idea of where the pressure points are, where to concentrate their efforts, what arguments to make where, where the soft vote is that could be persuaded to vote ‘Yes’. They’ll get their strategy to sell it ready and at the 14th they’ll make the decision to two one of two things. The first, most likely, to recommend a ‘Yes’ or, two, slightly less likely, to recommend nothing and to ‘let members decide’. If they take the former they will come out with some lines of argument that would make a Jesuit proud – see their statement on the property tax which was a beauty in it’s convoluted and confused reasoning.. They were at the same carry on with the Austerity Treaty last year when they failed to make a decision at one NEC and pushed it back to a second one.
SIPTU, and by ‘SIPTU’ I mean the hierarchy and the organisational structure of full timers, know that this deal can’t possibly be sold without very careful consideration to the lines of argumentation, to be used. There is no doubt some internal dissent that needs to be dealt with, some full timers who know this ‘deal’ should be repugnant to any functioning trade union sensibility. There’s a lot of work for official SIPTU to do and not a lot of time to do it in. As I think I said in a previous thread the cuts etc in CPII could well be sold but the betrayal underpinning the whole agreement itself, by entering into negotiations with nearly 15 months of CPI to go, is insurmountable. Their whole approach will flounder on that point alone. It’s too blatant and obvious a betrayal of the trust members placed in SIPTU when they voted to accept CPI.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Irish Medical Organisation, the Civil Public and Services Union and Unite have come together to sponsor a joint campaign against Croke Park II (http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0307/374554-imo-croke-park/)
They are organising a series of meetings across the country over the next month:
Thursday, 14 March CORK, City Hall
Tuesday, 19 March LETTERKENNY, Mount Errigal Hotel
Wednesday, 20 March UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK
Thursday, 21 March NUI GALWAY
Monday, 25 March SLIGO, IT
Monday, 25 March WATERFORD, IT
Tuesday, 26 March DUNDALK, Town Hall
Tuesday, 26 March PORTLAOISE, Heritage Hotel
Wednesday, 27 March DUBLIN, UCD
Wednesday, 3 April TRALEE, Brandon Hotel
Thursday, 4 April DUBLIN, CWU Conference Centre
(https://revolutionaryprogramme.wordp…croke-park-ii/)
All these meetings start at 8pm except for Waterford and Dublin which I understand start at 7pm
The following is the text of a leaflet being distributed by a number of IMPACT activists, including myself, in Cork.
WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE NO TO CROKE PARK 2
The new Croke Park deal is a vicious attack on the pay and conditions of all Public Sector workers and their families by the Government. Shamefully our Trade Union leaders have allowed it to tear up an existing agreement that was due to run until June 2014 and have agreed to another one, which is significantly worse.
IMPACT and SIPTU negotiators have collaborated with the Government to suggest new ways of cutting public service pay. Public sector workers have already suffered huge cuts in direct pay cuts, tax increases and erosion of sick pay entitlements as part of the overall austerity imposed on us in order to pay off the debts of our banks. This deal offers more of the same including a continuation of a recruitment embargo, despite 30,000 workers having already left the Public Service.
REASONS TO VOTE NO
A Pay and Increments Freeze. Inflation is currently running at 2 percent but pay is frozen for three more years. Workers are also being denied increment increases. It is another pay cut on top of the average 14% pay cut public sector workers have already taken.
Six days less holidays for some workers. Workers at the top of their pay scale (between €35k & €65k p.a.) must accept a cut in holidays – or accept another pay cut.
Extra hours – a pay cut by another name. Trade unions normally try to reduce the working week but the Impact leadership want us to work longer. Many workers who achieved a 34 or 35 hour week will have to do 37 hours; others will be forced to work 39 hours. This is the same as a 6% pay cut.
Unpaid overtime. Workers on a 39 hour week will have to give an hour’s overtime for free. That represents a pay cut for tens of thousands of council staff who sometimes rely on overtime because of lower pay.
Cuts to overtime rate. Workers long ago won the right to be paid time and a half for overtime. Now it is reduced to time and a quarter.
Direct pay cuts for those over €65,000. The original Croke Park deal was meant to protect pay but this was another lie.
Restrictions on Work-sharing and Flexi-time. The new deal is an attack on families and women juggling home and work and who will now face increased childcare costs as a result of longer working hours. Further restrictions to flexi-time and work-sharing will force many parents of young families into acceptance of voluntary redundancy. Croke Park 2 acknowledges this implicitly in section 2.11.
Forced Redundancy? This deal explicitly leaves open the possibility of forced redundancy for the first time by stating that the “Business needs of the Organisation” would make for “circumstances where voluntary redundancy is appropriate”.
Is this the last attack on our pay and conditions as Minister Howlin states?
Section 1.13 and 1.14 deals with the “Review of this Agreement” and the possibility of revisiting the commitments or assumptions within it which of course gives the Government a get-out clause to come back for more in similar fashion to which they have already done.
The Impact leadership keep insisting that the Government intends to legislate anyway if an agreement is not reached but they have played this game for the past four years. They justify every retreat by saying that if we do not accept it the alternative is much worse. All this does is encourage the Government to seek more by making a big enough threat. If it was this simple to legislate why do they need the agreement of Trade Unions? Having to pass legislation will force Labour TD’s who campaigned to protect Public Servants pay to explain why they are now doing the opposite. The reality is that our co-operation with these cuts is necessary to maintain the illusion that austerity is working.
This Government is terrified that workers will take collective action, contrary to what we hear from the trade union leaderships. There are alternatives.
We are not powerless.
We therefore have to stop the retreat or else we will face further cuts in the near future. A network of activists across Impact that is organised to defeat this deal can be the start of a campaign to take back our Union and turn it into something that really protect member’s interests.
VOTE NO TO CROKE PARK 2
This leaflet is produced by IMPACT members in local authorities and health services in a personal capacity. Please distribute this letter to your colleagues
Jane Power, IMPACT member, Cork City Council
Donal Guerin, IMPACT member, Cork City Council
Anthony Hetherington, IMPACT member, HSE.
Alan Gibson, IMPACT member, NCRI
Michael O’Sullivan, IMPACT member, Cork County Council
(https://revolutionaryprogramme.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/open-letter-to-members-of-impact-on-croke-park-2/)
Sligo Branch yesterday recommending that members vote No to the proposals.
http://sligotoday.ie/details.php?id=24822
Also includes a response by the IMPACT communications officer Niall Shanahan calling for a YES vote. The fact that they felt the need to do this would indicate how worried they are!
First time in a long time, as far as I know, that there’s been much internal debate within IMPACT about a national deal. I should add that I haven’t been active in the union in 13 years so I could be wrong on that.
I fully intended going to my own branch agm this year. But it was postponed due to complaints that nominations for the branch executive committee were invalidly ruled invalid by the current branch exec. Head Office stepped in and will reschedule and rerun the branch election.
My fevered imagination has Head Office spotting a socialist or two getting nominated and stepping in to put a stop to it.
But to my shame I know none of the people involved.
Anyway, that Cork anti-CP2 leaflet will come in handy for my vote no speech at the agm, if and when it is held.
For me it’s down to this – we have to fight back – if we roll over and take this without a fight, the employer will see us as a soft touch and will be back for more off us. Time to fight back.
+1
Spot on, Joe.
Slightly off the point, but still related, the estimable Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) published an interesting article yesterday which made a good case that the European Commission are actually more intent on pushing workers living standards and economic position downwards than they are on focusing on the notional 3% deficit target. They give the telling example of Belgium who missed their allocated 2.15% deficit target and was admonished by the Commission, largely because the Belgians refused to de-couple automatic wage increases from inflation. The Dutch, on the other hand, took the necessary ‘labour reforms’ demanded by the Commission but had a deficit of 3.4% and was not subject to the same level of censure as Belgium.
What I would interpret this as meaning in an Irish context is that there will be permanent pressure on the Irish government to keep reducing public sector pay, conditions and numbers even when the 3% deficit target is reached. CP2, in that context, is another stage in that process and will, inevitably, be replaced before it elapse with another further agreement that will reduce still further the economic position of public servants.
The CEO article is here:
http://corporateeurope.org/news/double-jeopardy
Great link. People should bear this in mind the next time a member of the political and/or media establishment bleats about the alleged need to ‘balance the books’.