Trade union leaders have rejected further pay cuts in particularly the public sector. On 12 September, Jack O’Connor, president of the country’s largest union Siptu, said workers would not stand for further pay cuts and welfare reductions as proposed by outgoing European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Jürgen Stark. The leader of the largest public service union raised his voice on the same issue. Impact general secretary Shay Cody said that further public service pay cuts, as suggested by mr Stark, were unlikely so long as the Croke Park agreement continued to meet government targets, which had been agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Commission (EC) and ECB. Shay Cody added that IMF and EC had published positive reports about the State’s progress regarding the financial bailout the week before. Slightly later also Tánaiste (vice Prime Minister) Eamon Gilmore dismissed Stark’s call for stronger public sector pay cuts and a quicker austerity drive (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 April, June and July-August 2011).
English: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0913/1224304027147.html
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. 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 at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2011.