Following a key court ruling and further clarification from the Labour Relations Commission (LRC), the executive of the IMPACT public service union has decided that it will recommend its members to accept the public service (“Croke Park”) agreement proposed by the government. The court ruled that important parts of an existing agreement covering performance management, outsourcing guarantees, premium pay rates and other issues would continue to be valid. The LRC also confirmed that unions would be fully consulted over the implementation of redeployment and restructuring under the public service agreement. The SIPTU general union had already indicated support for the agreement and is currently consulting members while the CPSU civil service union had recommended that its members vote to reject the “Croke Park” agreement. In an effort to win support for the pay deal, the government decided not to proceed with any pension reforms until after December 2014, when the agreement runs out. Increases in pensions for retired public sector workers are linked to salary rises in their previous post. The government indicated it was going to look at linking public sector pensions to the cost of living (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 April 2010).
English: http://www.siptu.ie/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2010/Name,11513,en.html; http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fg-wont-honour-pension-uturn-in-croke-park
For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.