Professor Bill Roche 'Social partnership faces its greatest challenge yet'

Published Irish Independent Friday 17th July 2009.

Author Professor Bill Roche

The report of An Bord Snip Nua will have led to a sharp intake of breath by trade union leaders, especially in public service unions.

The scale of the cuts proposed in public service jobs is dramatic enough, at 17,300. But the McCarthy report goes further -- criticising what it calls outmoded work practices and allowances across the sector.

The recommendations are unprecedented in scale and in the potential effects they could have on public service pay, numbers and work practices.

The suggested cuts dwarf the famous MacSharry programme of pubic service cuts in late 1980s. The unions accepted those measures in the first social partnership programme, the Programme for National Recovery (PNR), and remained in the tent even when further cuts were introduced without consultation or agreement.

Their willingness to accept such measures, including public job cuts, was predicated on modest rises in pay and income tax cuts. But no 'sweeteners' of this kind are on the table this time. Income tax seems set to rise and An Bord Snip Nua has added to mounting pressure on public service pay and pension levels.

But the reaction of trade union leaders has been very measured. Peter McLoone is leader of IMPACT, the largest public service union with a significant presence in the health sector, where over 6,000 job losses are proposed.

In responding to the proposed cuts, McLoone has indicated his union's continuing willingness to work with the Government and towards significant reforms.

He has also made clear that any attempt unilaterally to impose cuts in numbers or pay would meet with stiff resistance and possible strike action.

John Carr, General Secretary of the INTO, whose members face the prospect of increased class sizes, reduced teacher numbers and the merger of smaller schools, has adopted a similar moderate posture, calling for a response within the social partnership process.

Unless they can be centrally involved in the handling of the crisis and in negotiating the implementation of the kinds of measures proposed by An Board Snip, it seems inevitable that the unions will rely on traditional industrial relations measures to defend their members' pay and conditions. This should be no surprise.

Burden

Unions are in the business of looking after their members in bad times as in good, and they will be able to draw on those members' anger at being asked again to carry the burden of cuts in public expenditure.

Unions remain strong and well organised across the public service, representing nearly 80pc of public servants.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions will have reflected on the lesson learned in March, when a planned 'day of action' across the public service (as well as parts of the private sector) was called off, to a significant degree because MANDATE marginally failing to achieve the two-thirds majority required for industrial action.

A general strike type campaign seems unlikely if unions seek to oppose unilateral cuts. But shorter, more targeted forms of industrial action will hardly seem any better to public service users -- given their potential to cause significant disruption.

The alternative route open to Government is to seek to incorporate the measures mooted by An Bord Snip into ongoing talks with the unions.

The total of €5.3bn in cuts identified by An Bord Snip is well in excess of the expenditure retrenchment the Government may be able to live with.

Still, the introduction of the cuts and radical reforms of pay, pensions and work practices into the near threadbare social partnership process would amount to by far the greatest challenge it has faced in its 22-year history.

Bill Roche is Professor of Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the School of Business, UCD.

- Bill Roche