Reaction:The benchmarking process will widen the gap between the highest and lowest wage earners, two of the State's biggest unions have said.
Siptu and the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) said the benchmarking process was fundamentally flawed because it reflected trends in the private sector where top management was rewarded better than those further down the scale.
However, the private sector was supportive of the process, with both Ibec and the Small Firms' Association saying that public sector wages had finally been brought into the real world.
The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association (Isme) said the benchmarking report should have gone even further and recognised factors like job security, more holidays and fewer working hours when calculating public service pay.
Siptu and the CPSU said the decision to change the method of calculating public service pay, from a median of the equivalent in the private sector to a weighted average, was done without explanation and was an exercise in minimising pay increases for public servants.
The CPSU contrasted awards of 11.4 per cent for the secretaries general of departments on top of a 7.5 per cent interim award in July 2005 with the decision to make no pay award to clerical officers.
According to CPSU figures, the pay of secretaries general has almost doubled from €121,431 in 2000 to €224,200 this year, while clerical officers have seen their salaries increase by only half that amount from an average of €24,779 to €35,773 in the same period. The CPSU was fiercely critical of the way in which the benchmarking body calculated pension benefits when making its decision.
It said the 15 per cent discount which the Higher Review Body made for secretaries general was neutralised by the fact their salary level was restored to 100 per cent of the average figure for the lowest 25 per cent of earners in the private sector that they were benchmarked against.
In the previous Higher Review Body review in 2000, it was set at 85 per cent.
The CPSU said the fact that clerical officer salaries were discounted by 12 per cent on the basis that the norm for pension provision in the private sector is 8.5 per cent of salary represented a "race to the bottom in terms of pension provision which is completely unacceptable".
While two-thirds of a clerical officer's final pension of €17,886 per annum would be paid by the State through the old-age pension, a secretary general would have a final pension of €112,100 per annum which would be paid through the superannuation fund, CPSU explained. "It is simply completely wrong that a clerical officer would be asked to forgo salary to effectively provide pension for higher-paid public servants," said Blair Horan, the general secretary of the CPSU.
Siptu vice-president Brendan Hayes said the real significance of the benchmarking awards was that lower-paid workers would receive no increase going into the future, because private-sector workers in a similar position were having their wages and pension rights eroded.
"Attacks on pay and conditions will continue in the private sector and ultimately apply to public sector pensions and other conditions of employment," Mr Hayes said. By contrast, business groups said that public service pay had grown at unsustainable levels in the last decade.
Ibec director-general Turlough O'Sullivan said that public sector workers are paid an average of about 50 per cent more than employees in the private sector. "As we seek to restore our competitive edge in the world and protect jobs and living standards for all, pay moderation is essential," he said.
Isme chief executive Mark Fielding said union indignation about the benchmarking process was misplaced. "The spin from the public sector unions that they are receiving no pay increases needs to be stopped."