'Partnership' 2003? The main provisions

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday January 15, 2003 23:10 by Paul Kinsella - Various paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire 087-9748511

What's in it for us?

Absolutely nothing. The main provisions amount to fuck all. Anyway here goes. See what you think.

Here in very brief terms is the set of proposals cobbled together in a shady backroom deal early on the morning of Monday 13th January 2003 following protracted discussions between IBEC (the Irish Business and Employers Confrederation-representing big business), Government and Unions.

In the Private Sector - a 7% increase over 18 months as follwos:
* 3% for the first 9 months
* 2% for the following 6 months
* 2% for the remaining 3 months

This in effect gives an increase of 5% on the 10th month of the agreement and following full implementation the overall cumulative effect would be 7.25%

In the Public Sector - there is a 6 month pay pause followed by:
* 3% on 1.1.04 for a period of 6 months
* 2% from 1.7.04 for 5 months
* 2% on 1.12.04 for 1 month

In regards to Benchmarking,
* the first phase of 25% will be paid following acceptance and backdated to December 2001.
* 50% will be paid in January 2004
* Remaining 25% will be paid in June 2005

Redundancy
The Redundancy Act will be changed as per the following:
* The half week for those under 41 is abolished
* the new terms are 2 weeks per year of service irrespective of age plus the bonus week which has been retained.

Minimum Wage
It was agreed that the minimum wage would rise to €7.00 per hour as and from January 2004.

Trade Union Recognition
There has been a commitment from the Tanaiste, Mary Harney, to legislate on these new improvments. However, the full text of the proposed changes in the existing arrangements are not to hand and I do not expect that these will be readily available for some time.

To sum up:
Workers are expected to suffer a cut in their living standards as inflation, even according to the most optimistic forecasts will average 6% over the next year, whereas only 7% is on offer over 18 months. Benchmarking will ease the pain for some Public Sector workers, but the Benchmarking report tended to benefit the better off workers in the Public Sector disproportionally compared to the lower paid Public Servants, so yet again the lower paid lose out. The other provisions are only tit-bits and crumbs from the table and there's no mention at all of any ideas to tackle the most pressing issue at the moment, namely the scandalous crisis in our Public Health system that has reduced our Public Health system to worse than third world standards and has seen patients being treated in the back of ambulances because there are no beds available in the hospitals and avoidable tragic outrages such as the death of the new born baby Bronagh Livingstone who was refused admission to Monaghan General Hospital because their Accident and Emergency Unit has been closed due to government cut-backs and who was forced to travel to Cavan General Hospital where she died. But then you see the likes of O'Toole, Geraghty, Beggs and the rest of the fat cat union bureaucrats don't have to worry about being treated in the back of ambulances or being refused admission to hospital because they have their Plan E Options from the VHI and they would get 5 star treatment in the Blackrock Clinic.