Union warns industrial action inevitable unless meaningful pay offer tabled

Trade union Unite, which organises workers in a wide range of public sector employments, said today that a meeting of the union’s public sector shop stewards has decided to launch a ballot for industrial action across the public sector. The decision follows the government’s failure to table what the union termed a ‘meaningful offer on pay’ following expiry of the 2024-2026 Public Service Agreement. The ballot is also protective in nature and is intended to ensure that members are in a position to respond should further negotiations fail to produce an acceptable outcome as well protecting existing conditions.

Unite is a member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ Public Services Committee, which last week advised that they do not believe there is a viable basis for opening formal negotiations in the absence of the Government setting out a sufficiently credible approach to public sector workers’ pay and living standards at the outset.

Public sector workers have seen the value of increases paid in February and June wiped out by inflation. A survey of Unite public sector members earlier this year found that a third had to borrow just to meet their household costs over the preceding year.

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said, “The government has had ample time to put forward a meaningful offer on pay as the basis for talks on a new public service agreement. Their failure to do so leaves unions with no option but to make the necessary preparations to defend our members’ living standards during an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.”

At this week’s meeting, Unite public sector shop stewards were also clear that a range of issues must be addressed in any negotiations. These include the public sector Additional Superannuation Contribution, which replaced the austerity-era pension levy, and the lack of progress on local bargaining claims.

The union’s Deputy Regional Secretary Tom Fitzgerald said, “Public sector workers have been running to stand still while employer interests are pandered to at every opportunity. Central to any agreement has to be the securing of inflation-busting pay increases for public sector workers.”