Workers Solidarity Movement

INTO Vote No

Public Sector Deal - 10 Reasons to Vote No

WSM member Gregor Kerr on why teachers should vote no to the Croke Park Agreement. Speaking at a debate organised by the North Dublin branch of the Irish National Teachers Organisation.

We must reject this deal, which is worse than the status quo. It is so bad that the executives of a number of unions have even gone against their negotiators by recommending rejection of the deal. The union leadership has forgotten how to fight and even those amongst them those who argue for rejecting the deal simply want to get back to the table for further negotiations.

The long days and nights of bargaining between government and union top brass at Croke Park ended when the participants emerged and presented the fruits of their deliberations. It is a pretty awful deal, which rubber stamped the pay cuts already handed out to public sector workers and added a whole layer of new working conditions, essentially extra hours and responsibilities for the same or lower pay. Over the couple of weeks that followed, the various public sector unions in conference or at executive level recommended either accepting or rejecting this deal, with the final call resting with the membership. As we go to print the final result of these ballots are still unknown but recent experience should warn us that, in either case, the battle is far from over.

The CPSU activist group have produced a leaflet calling on members of the CPSU to vote No to the public sector deal.  "Many public sector workers have been shocked and angered that such a deal was agreed in the first place, some general secretaries including our own tried to present the deal as some kind of “victory”. Of course we can now see clearly that this is a rotten deal." 

The INTO Vote No Campaign today launched a new, updated version of the leaflet calling on members of the union to reject the Public Sector deal. This leaflet will be distributed throughout the country at INTO information meetings and in school staffrooms in the coming weeks in advance of the ballot of members which takes place during May (closing date 21st May).

With the National Executive of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation coming out unanimously against the Public Service deal and the NEC of SIPTU advocating a yes vote, the battle lines are well and truly drawn.  The next few weeks will see an intense debate in the trade union movement on this deal, and the threats of what will happen to us if we don't comply are already coming thick and heavy from government ministers such as Mary Harney and Brian Lenihan.

This text is currently being distributed in leaflet form by the Vote No to the Public Sector Agreement campaign within the Irish National Teachers Organisation. As well as arguing why the agreement is bad for education workers in the public sector it also explains why it is also bad for other public sector workers.  If you want to distribute the leaflet you'll find a link to a PDF of it at the bottom of the text.

In a major setback for the government the executive of Impact, the country’s largest public sector union has rejected the deal which was negotiated last week.

Following the vote by the Central Executive Committee of the country's largest public sector union, IMPACT, that they cannot recommend acceptance of the public sector deal in the forthcoming ballot of members, the deal is under huge pressure.  IMPACT's outgoing general secretary Peter McLoone has been one of the principal advocates of the deal and the failure of his union's executive to back the deal will have serious ramifications not alone within IMPACT but in other public sector unions as well.