THE SECOND ACT of the Joke Park Agreement has been published after a series of dramatic walk-outs, the usual media posturing and obligatory look-important all night talks to hammer out the final deal (or play cards long enough that it looks like you fought your corner). The week that followed has seen the unions splitting in a way we really haven’t seen through the golden years of social partnership, and it seems that sector by sector there could well be industrial action to come and further pressure on fault lines.
The whole idea of the agreement was to seek the same sort of non-confrontational consensus that ruled during the upwards-only salary review period of the boom. The government would seek efficiencies and in return there would be no lay-offs and the unions wouldn’t strike. Of course, all the pay raises during the boom years were supposed to deliver these mysterious and magical ‘efficiencies’, but never mind.
Croke Park I managed to bring the public sector to realise such novel savings as universities tendering together for the same goods and services to avail of lower prices with their combined volume. In other words, we had to bargain with the unions to get senior employees to pick up the phone to one another and coordinate.
Cork County Council managed to drop their annual travel bill by €300,000 in one year; which is fascinating when one considers that the Department of Foreign Affairs got its down by €500,000. Again in other words, the joke of an agreement saw such goodwill from union members (and it does seem from this that they are union members first, employees of the state second) that they decided to go on fewer junkets that year.
The new agreement crosses a Rubicon as far as the unions are concerned, in that it attacks certain forms of pay and allowances; cutting pay for those earning over €65,000 a year and freezing increments. I have written recently that the changes to the pay of front-line staff, who work under strained circumstances, is unacceptable. However, I don’t see much of a problem in cutting out the putting-stamps-on-letters or putting-toner-in-the-printer allowances for office workers; or being-paid-an-allowance-to-drive-a-forklift-when-your-job-title-is-forklift-driver. Similarly, the idea that folks in full time salaried jobs should work a 39 hour week merely begs the question in my mind as to why they don’t already work a 40 hour week.
Our public sector has been constructed over the years like a patchwork quilt of organisations, working rules, pay agreements and bureaucratic pertinacity. One of the major accomplishments of Croke Park I was that it started to grease the wheels for moving public servants from one area of state employment to another to meet demands, such as in our social welfare apparatus. Under the union rules, when you’re hired you’re hired, and not but for a stick of dynamite, a promotion or pay increase should you move, change, adapt or acquiesce for the good of the organisation.
If we’re now going to see the truce between unions and the state comes apart, there should be a more unilateral approach to reform of how our public sector works. The example of Defence Forces reform in the past two decades springs to mind, when the government brought in external experts to produce a white paper on reform. It looked at the forces as they were at the time, set up for the troubles and UN deployments that were both winding down; and having a massive legacy that stretched back to British military rule of the country in terms of facilities and structures.
The report looked at where they wanted to go, and a process of modernisation was implemented that changed things right down to the quality of the runners issued to soldiers for use during physical training. Facilities were closed, conditions improved and an up-or-out system came into effect.
That kind of systemic and all-encompassing reform hasn’t been tried under the compromise agreements of Croke Park. It could be argued that its success in the Defence Forces lays with the dual facts that soldiers’ lives are at risk if the organisation isn’t performing at top notch; and anyway, they’re not allowed go on strike.
The government should look to perform this kind of reform and improvement on an ongoing basis in any event; but in the context of the need for savings and more efficient work practices, it is particularly pertinent today. If unions are not willing to engage in the reasonably soft process of consensus built reform, public sector workers should be presented with reforms for efficiencies. Pay is a different matter, and I believe in reaching agreement there; but when it comes to work practices short of robber baron practices, employees should do as they are told.
If managers within the public sector want to frustrate reforms, they should be judged against their performance in achieving independently set targets and fired if they can’t – or won’t – do it. If workers want to strike while a deal is on the table, they should be left out in the cold. The country was bent over a barrel for too long by unions whose leaders had their heads in the trough alongside their political benefactors during the boom.
These same unions, barring those on the frontline who are under a cheap attack, can get with the new programme or enjoy singing Marxist songs around the picket line fires while we move on ahead without them. There’s plenty of folks of who won’t expect a mail opening allowance during their 35 hour week who can cross those pickets.
There’s a deal – it’s not ideal, but it’s a deal.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. He is also involved in activism in his local area. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna. To read more columns by Aaron click here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say