CPSU conference: About 2,500 civil servants in the Department of Social and Family Affairs are threatened with the loss of their final benchmarking payment because of a dispute over proposed new work practices.
The clerical and staff officers, members of the Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU), could also miss out on a general pay rise unless the row is resolved before both pay increases are due on June 1st. The threat to withhold the money was condemned yesterday by the union at its annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry. The pay rises involved total close to 4 per cent.
CPSU financial secretary Eoin Ronayne told delegates that the secretary general of the department, John Hynes, had prepared a draft letter for the Department of Finance requesting that the staff be denied the increases.
Mr Ronayne said the department was seeking co-operation on work practice change in two areas that had not been agreed. One concerned means-testing of people seeking unemployment assistance and the other related to a "profiling survey" of clients planned by the department.
The means-testing row was about the level at which decisions should be taken. The CPSU's position was that a review of the whole area was taking place and the department should await the outcome before implementing change.
His members' problem with the survey was that it involved asking clients questions which were "complex and personal" and would normally "be the kind of questions asked by social welfare inspectors or those on higher grades". It was "inappropriate" to ask clerical officers to do this work.
Mr Ronayne claimed the department's stance was "unacceptable", especially given that staff in that department had implemented wide-ranging changes in return for benchmarking, including lunchtime opening. Their workload had also dramatically increased due to the tens of thousands of migrant workers from the new EU states who were applying for PPS numbers.
Mr Hynes's draft letter, which he had seen, had in fact acknowledged the range of improvements delivered by social welfare staff under the benchmarking process, Mr Ronayne said.
Only 300 staff were directly involved in the row, he added, but all 2,500 staff on the relevant grades were being threatened with the loss of their pay rises. The CPSU would pursue the matter through agreed conciliation and arbitration procedures.
Clerical officers were awarded an 8.5 per cent increase under benchmarking, considerably less than staff on higher grades. Three-quarters of this has been paid, and the final instalment is due in June, along with a 1.5 per cent increase under Sustaining Progress. This can be withheld where staff refuse to co-operate with "normal ongoing change".
A new benchmarking review is to get under way in the second half of this year, with a report due in 2007. CPSU general secretary Blair Horan reacted angrily yesterday to a call by the employers' body, Ibec, for the new benchmarking round to deliver a "nil" pay increase for public servants.
Mr Horan said we had not heard Ibec director general Turlough O'Sullivan, who made the call, criticise the "very generous" executive pay awards in the private sector.
