Ireland's public sector pay talks are back in the room today, and the union leading them will not pretend a deal is close. Kevin Callinan, general secretary of Forsa, told members on Friday that face-to-face negotiations were likely to resume on bank holiday Monday, after a week of daily meetings and work through the weekend. He also said he could not yet say whether a draft agreement would be possible.
That is a cooler reading than the one that circulated in Dublin on Thursday, when the silence inside the Workplace Relations Commission was being taken as a sign of progress. The strike that would have shut schools and cancelled hospital appointments last Wednesday stays off. The work to rule does not. Callinan has asked members to keep following the instructions for their own workplaces while the talks run.
"With or without an agreement"
In his note to members, Callinan said negotiations of this scale are "often slow and arduous" and that this round is no different. The union side, he said, had set out members' objectives and would try for the best outcome it could get. Then the line that matters: he believes the current process is likely to conclude at some point this week. "Whether it's with or without an agreement remains to be seen."
The dispute began when union leaders walked away from exploratory talks in June, as the previous wage deal expired. They said there was no basis for formal talks unless pay and the cost of living came first. A one-day stoppage last week closed schools and led to thousands of cancelled medical appointments. A second 24-hour strike, due last Wednesday, was suspended so these talks could start. The government had agreed that discussions should open on pay, including the unions' claims for the cost of living from 2021 to 2025, for this year, and for the life of any new agreement.
The money, and what a deal cannot fix
The Irish Times has reported that the unions want the government to go beyond the 1.2 billion euro set aside in this month's budget for a public sector deal, and that the coalition could stretch toward 1.6 billion euro. Neither figure has been confirmed as an offer. Both explain why a week of talks can still end without paper.
Adrian Kane, Siptu's deputy general secretary, told the union's Public Administration and Community conference in Galway on Friday that no single set of pay talks could "resolve all our woes". He said the government's instinct in a period of high inflation would be to suppress wages, and that the private sector would watch whatever number is eventually published. He also argued that pay without investment in services would simply push work out to contractors.
The Talks, in Short
- About 400,000 public servants are covered by the dispute.
- Formal talks at the WRC began after last week's strike was suspended.
- Forsa expects the process to end this week, with or without a draft deal.
- Unions want more than the 1.2 billion euro set aside in the budget. A stretch to 1.6 billion euro has been suggested.
- The work to rule continues while the negotiations run.
For readers in Britain, the comparison with Wednesday's Budget in London is not exact, but the pressure is the same: prices have risen faster than pay deals written in calmer years, and finance ministries are trying not to reset the whole wage structure at once. If you want the path that got Dublin to this Monday, start with Thursday's account of the third day, and with the decision to call off the strike and open formal talks.