SEVERAL THOUSAND lower-paid civil servants are expected to stage protests today against the introduction of the controversial pension levy for staff in the public service.
The general secretary of the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU), Blair Horan said last night the protests today would be of limited duration and should not unduly affect the public. They were geared primarily at management and he said they would take place in a number of regions nationwide. He declined to specify the nature of the protests planned.
The protests represent the second wave of opposition to the pension levy by lower-paid civil servants.
Last month about 13,000 members of the CPSU staged a one-day strike in protest at the levy. That industrial action closed Revenue and social welfare public offices through the State and disrupted services in Government departments.
The union said last month that in any subsequent industrial action it would not do anything that affected payments to people who were unemployed.
There has also been speculation in recent weeks that the CPSU could refuse to co-operate with parliamentary questions or work on internal Government reports as part of further stages of its campaign against the levy.
Mr Horan said last night clerical officers in the civil service were paid on a weekly basis and were one of the first groups to feel the effects of the introduction of the new pension levy in their pay packets last week. The CPSU has estimated that in gross terms its members could lose between €40 and €60 as a result of the levy.
Last Friday three unions representing more than 50,000 teachers voted in favour of industrial action over the Government’s handling of the economic crisis.
The unions, the INTO, the ASTI and the TUI, said that the decision to vote in favour of industrial action reflected the anger of teachers at the Government’s “inequitable handling of the economic crisis” and showed the frustration felt by teachers over education cutbacks and the introduction of the pensions levy.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is organising a nationwide one-day strike for March 30th in sectors where the national pay deal has not been implemented or an alternative agreed.
