Proposals intended to resolve the long-running dispute involving health and social care workers employed by charities and voluntary organisations will cost €140 million annually, the Government has said.
There is likely to be some disappointment among some union members the deal does not match the targeted measures for less well paid workers contained in the public sector pay agreement.
The 9.25 per cent total pay increases envisaged over two years is broadly in line with that public pay deal, however, and the commitment to a link with future such deals will be welcomed given the delays experienced with negotiations over the past couple of years.
The issue is that the public sector agreement provided for some minimum increases for staff earning below €50,000 – at least €1,000 at the start of this month, or 2 per cent, whichever was higher – a structuring that meant the overall deal was worth more than 17 per cent to the very lowest paid workers.
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The proposals tabled after protracted talks on Monday evening do not include such clauses, however, despite union concerns regarding the prevalence of low pay in some of the organisations involved.
“Those clauses were something we wanted to replicate,” said one union source on Tuesday. “But the other side they didn’t know what the cost would be and couldn’t open the Government up to funding something that couldn’t be quantified. It was difficult to refute that.”
The issue highlights the slightly chaotic nature of the way a system of outsourcing by the Government of various health and social services has evolved over the years with neither side at Monday’s talks quite sure how many people are working for the bodies being funded by the various government departments and agencies or how much they earn.
Asking a third party to try to assemble that information is part of the proposed agreement with eight months allowed for the process, although the timeframe might yet prove optimistic.
The unions also failed to get the Government negotiators to budge on their refusal to apply the increases to workers where the services being provided have been the subject of a tendering process. It was said this would have the potential to contravene competition or procurement rules. The Workplace Relations Commission document sent to the two sides on Tuesday says that pay for these staff “can only be dealt with through the existing procurement processes”. It is not clear how that will work.
Nevertheless, there are clear positives in the proposals, with basic pay rates set to increase by almost 10 per cent over the next 18 months and staff in line, if they approve the deal, for modest lump sums to cover a 2 per cent initial increase backdated to the start of October, commitments to much smoother implementation of the funding required by employer organisations to pay increases and an acknowledgment that backing will also need to be provided to cope with greater non-payroll cost, including auto-enrolment.
If accepted, the deal would not restore the link to grades in the public sector some workers lost over the years but Minister for Children Norma Foley described it as “historic” and the unions involved are set to recommend it to members.
Employers, meanwhile, have welcomed the proposals with one source saying on Monday “the agreement should have a real impact on recruitment and retention and also provides a mechanism for addressing remaining discrepancies, some historical anomalies and other issues such as costs.”
