Public Service Pay Agreement 2024

Members covered under the Public Sector Pay Agreement 2024 have been voting on whether or not to accept the deal. Siptu shop steward Andrew Keegan covers perspectives of workers on why some workers are voting no and why the deal should be rejected.

In February Government Minister Pascal O’Donoghue stated that the agreement was a fair deal despite it not outpacing inflation. And that same week the business friendly organisation IBEC argued the minimum wage should not be increased. This exposes a double-act of pushing back on any improvement in pay and conditions for working people in the public and private sectors.

It seems, that this government will always act in bad faith when it comes to the economic issues concerning public pay. We only can look how this government has treated nurses and medical professionals in the past regarding pay and adequate staffing levels. Essentially, they have reneged on the most recent pay agreements and continue to underfund our health services. Their attitude toward the rest of the public sector is similar.

The supposed increases in the deal are strung out over 2.5 years, weakening the economic impact it will have for workers who need increases that keep up with the cost of living. The unions themselves know that workers need at least 19% in total to get back to where they should be to keep up with inflation and recoup what was lost under austerity and close to 9% today just to cover inflation for the last couple of years.

In addition, austerity measures under FEMPI removed over two billion euro from public pay packages with a real but the real cost to workers worth many times more than that over the years since the financial crash.

The agreement states that pay adjustments of 10.25% will be spread over 2.5 years with 4.25% spread across 2024. Union bureaucrats trying to sell the deal are spinning it to claim that it benefits lower paid workers more. This depends on how you look at the numbers, though.

As a percentage, yes, lower paid workers get a larger increase than higher paid workers, mostly due to lump sums payable at the lower end of pay-scales. However, given the disparity between lower and higher salaries, higher paid workers are still getting far more in real euros and the highest paid aren’t’ feeling the increases on essentials like rent, food, and energy in the same way as lower and middle income earners.

For example, in the Civil Service, workers represented by Forsa and lead negotiator Kevin Calinan, Clerical and Executive officers will both have the gap between their starting pay and a Higher Executive Officer’s starting pay widen by around 3,000 euros from the beginning of the continuation to Building Momentum to the end of this current proposed pay deal.

This shows the way in which our own union negotiators manage to help government distribute more cash upwards rather than approach negotiations with a militant spirit. The unions need to be led by their workers, and the worst paid among them, if real gains for ordinary people across the board, public and private, are to be won under the current system.

As it stands now, this method of industrial peace with severe limitations on industrial action, can only lead so far until the unions accept whatever austerity might come down the line in the shape of redundancies, further pay-cuts, or pay-freezes.

My only comment is, if you need to talk-up an agreement as much as the union bosses are, then there must be a problem somewhere.

Talking to union members in my sector, it is clear they were hoping for 9% to 12% over one year just to cope with inflation and cost of living increases over the last two years and not a dragged out pay deal over 2.5 years that only suits the government and not the workforce.

Overall, there is huge dissatisfaction with this pay deal and most I have spoken to will vote No, as it does not deal with the real issues of inflation and the cost of living or even refund stolen pay under FEMPI.

The impact on lower wages is minimal and while it is better than nothing most union members feel that this agreement should be viewed as the base level to be improved on. It is preferable to reject this deal to force a proper deal on low pay, and send a direct message to the Trade Union leadership to go back and improve this pay agreement.

We need a pay deal for now and not for later.

Vote no, reject this agreement, and build fighting unions.