The two main Civil Service unions are to seek a pay review for their 17,000 members. The 7,000-strong Public Service Executive Union and 10,000-strong Civil and Public Service Union are responding to mounting pressure from members in the wake of the nurses' negative response to their £100 million award from the Labour Court.
The move also represents a further major blow to Government efforts to maintain public sector pay policy. The teachers' unions are already preparing a "catch up" claim to compensate them for loss of pay differentials with the nurses.
The CPSU has traditionally been one of the most militant public service unions. Members were balloted last December on withdrawing from Partnership 2000. The union's general secretary, Mr Blair Horan, said yesterday that it had decided instead to "monitor closely developments in other parts of the public sector".
Now, Mr Horan said, the union had decided to act. "The union's decision to seek a review of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work pay settlement was designed to protect the interests of lower-paid clerical grades in the Civil Service in the event of a free-for-all developing, arising from other public sector pay developments. The CPSU is determined that it will not allow clerical grades to fall behind."
There were a number of factors contributing to the current unrest, he said. One was the "unequal distribution of income in the public sector under social partnership". A "two-tier policy has operated" with senior managers receiving "a disproportionate share of income".
Between 1988 and 1999, he said, the salary of secretary-generals of departments had risen by 125 per cent and assistant secretary-generals by 98 per cent. Nurses had received pay increases of 77 per cent and teachers had received increases of 56 per cent. In contrast, clerical officers, who comprise the majority of CPSU members, received an increase of only 55 per cent.
"Rampant house price inflation" had also undermined workers' confidence in moderate incomes policies. "The disproportionate share of national income going to higher-income earners, professional groups and profits has helped fuel the house price spiral," he said.
The success of the pay review strategy pursued by the Civil Service unions will depend very much on what happens in the nurses' dispute, and the general fallout in pay terms for other public service grades. The call for a review will certainly give the Government an added incentive for holding the line in the health services.