Government must make meaningful offer or face winter strikes

Trade union Unite, which represents members across the public sector, has announced that members have returned an overwhelming mandate for industrial action, if the government fails to make a ‘meaningful offer’ on pay following the expiry of the 2024-2026 Public Services Agreement.

Unite is a member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ Public Services Committee, which earlier in the summer 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.

Unite will now consult with its shop stewards on the nature and timing of industrial action.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government needs to recognise reality. Public sector pay is being undermined by inflation and workers are facing a sustained cost-of-living crisis. Our members have Unite’s full support as they prepare to defend their living standards.”

While the absence of a public sector agreement means there is currently no framework governing pay, it also means that unions are not constrained by agreed industrial relations procedures.

Unite’s deputy regional secretary Tom Fitzgerald said: “If the government wants to avoid a winter of strikes, it must stop hiding its head in the sand, come to the table and make public sector workers a meaningful offer which ensures that workers’ pay packets, at the very least, keep pace with spiralling inflation”.