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A UNION REPRESENTING university staff is seeking legal advice over the Haddington Road Agreement, which it says is a ‘rushed job’.
The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) said the proposed public sector pay deal, which replaces the Croke Park 2 agreement after its rejection by the majority of unions, excludes non-union staff.
The union has hired a senior barrister to examine the constitutionality of the proposed deal to see whether there are grounds for IFUT to challenge it in the courts.
IFUT says the deal automatically freezes increments for staff who have not been a member of a trade union for three years, whether or not they support the deal or not.
The union’s general sectary said people who are not members of a trade union will be automatically treated as if they had voted no.
“It will assume that anybody who is not represented by a trade union will be treated in the same way as if they were represented by a trade union which had voted no,” Mike Jennings told RTE Radio One’s Morning Ireland.
Jennings said in a statement the proposed deal may not stand up to ‘constitutional scrutiny’ and ‘shows the hallmarks of having been a rushed job’.
“It would seem that for members not associated with a representative body, the Minister will be required either to make a special exception in each case, otherwise they will be treated the same as if they had rejected the Agreement,” he said.
IFUT is to decide on whether to recommend its members accept or reject the new deal once it has received legal advice and held a special conference in June.
Two teachers’ unions have already rejected the deal without balloting its members, saying that it is too similar to the Croke Park 2 agreement.
The government is still targeting savings of €300 million for this year in the public sector pay bill, and aims to save €1 billion over the next three years.
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SIPTU the biggest disgrace..jackass o’connor is the biggest goverment lick..done nothin for the workin man/woman in 13years..
I CANNOT understand how the hell he is still in the job he is!
Has the union no guts or kop-on to fire him?
An example of SIPTU’s double standards is at their very office in Palace St in Drogheda.
They allow one TD Ged Nash to use their building full time as his office when they know completely, as per vote mandate of actual members nation-wide, they are directly opposed to Ged Nash’s very positions!
Jack O’Connor is democratically elected by the membership of SIPTU, the vast majority workers employed in private sector jobs and lower paid public servants – they are content with his performance representing their interests, so your assertion does not stand up to balanced consideration.
People give out about the public sector but the bottom line is that 1 billion worth of cuts simply cannot happen in the next 3 years, it’s stretched as it is. I know I’m making a lot of enemies when I say this but the 20.2 billion spent on social welfare is a crazy figure, however neither of these should be cut until the boys at the top lead by example
Everything FG have tried to do has been unconstitutional!
An extremely broad statement without much connection to the actual story. Can you back up that statement with facts please.
Fiscal Treaty, they lied to the ppl,
ESM treaty, we should have got a vote on it, as our money was involved,
childrens rights ref, lied to the ppl again as the high court rule and the supreme court is about to rule,, how about just those 3 for starters
But none of those 3 were unconstitutional as you said?
@Brian,, first of all i never stated they were unconstitutional,, but haven said that i’m pretty sure that when your Gov lie to you that it is,,,
Joe – have you ever even seen a copy of the Constitution?
Brian
Try the property tax for one. The Minister has admitted in a Dáil question that it is for the Courts to decide if the property tax is in line with Articles 4, 40 & 43 of the constitution.
This new law (under pinning the Haddington Road Agreement), is forcing 2 commercial semi state companies to cut pay & increase working hours to their employees, actions which are in breach of Employment Law.
What about flying the President back from Rome to sign a law, that itself has the power to halt a Supreme Court Constitutional Action?
Do you want me to keep going?
Carcu, it is always for the Courts to decide if a law is Constitutional. That’s how it works.
This new law will override current employment law. It will not be in breach of it.
Please explain how the President signing a bill of law can “halt a a Supreme Court Constitutional Action”?
Yep, they have screwed up big time in a number of laws and bills created – but SHUSH, Fine Gael supporters get upset when they hear people mentioning these things. It gets them all fired up when some home truths are spoken.
On the Household tax alone, there a a number of cases already been fought over its legal standing – hell, the even forgot to legislate in that bill for the legality of signing and dating a form (thats not even mentioned in the bill but supposedly has to be signed!) which in turn makes it a legal document and declaration! Leave those details out and its not a fully standard legal financial instrument!
The The Local Government Household Charge Regulations 2011 Act alone is a joke!
its here on line… you don’t have to buy one and as for being unconstitutional the entire legal system is political and fails common law .one other thing the country is broke and law and order dose not prevail
J. Please point to the laws that have been overturned.
Bob
The employment contracts of the employees of the 2 Commercial State Companies are covered by Various Employment Laws, none of which are being amended to reflect this new bill. Also the employees are NOT Civil or Public Servants, but are in fact private employees just like any employee in a private corner shop or private factory anywhere in the country. Therefore the employees of the 2 Commercial State Companies, are excluded from other prevision’s of the bill. Unless the Government seek to apply the previsions in the new bill, to all employees in the country, they up against this;
Article 40, 1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law.
Now onto the President Higgins. When he signed the “Irish Bank Resolution Bill 2013”, making it an Act, he did so in the full knowledge that the original Government bank guarantee, (which led to the setting up of IRBC), was itself undergoing a constitutional challenge, not only by members of the public, but also by members of the Oireachtas.
In effect enacting the Irish Bank Resolution Bill 2013, has the result in halting the constitutional challenge to the original bank guarantee, because the conditions for the challenge have been replaced by the Irish Bank Resolution Act 2013 itself.
Is Shatter involved? If yes it is probably a good idea to have the courts review it.
what happens if unconstitutional?? what are government paying advisors for??
Massaging the figures and ego’s of hard-necked ministers after a long day sitting on their thumbs up!
More tweeking through the not-quite-winter but probably done from Provence and/or Tuscany or some other pretentious bolthole!!
Then negotio-fatigue sets in and combined with the usual budget scaremonging, all the little sheeple wag their tails and join a xmas club!!
No, no, and no again…..the Brotherhood of Bearded Board Members can stick it in their pipes and smoke it sideways!
What do they pay advisors for? To invent excuses every time they fcuk things up. Which is becoming more and more regular with this bunch of moronic f***tards.
15 years ago a tds pay and a teachers pay were on par .Nowadays a td is on 5 times more how can this be.
I am not in a union but other pay cuts and croke park 1 applied to me – why the sudden change?
@SandraTurner
The difference here is that what is “on offer” here is more punitive for those who reject HarrRd than for those who accept it.
If a union in a particular sector votes “no” then their non-union colleagues will be treated in the same way, ie receive the harsher deal.
I guess the message is, join the union quickly if you wish to influence the vote on HaddRd.
Can’t join – on unpaid maternity leave! Nothing to collect the sub off!
These guys are earning more than Oxford professors. They want to get a grip.
Is there a link to the legislation? Will those who get pay cuts have to work the extra hours?
@RodrigoD
I presume you are referring to the very small proportion of university staff who make it to professor – I assure you it represents a very small percentage indeed!
The vast bulk of university teachers are lecturers, none of whom earns more than about €70K – and to get to there (top of the scale) is no easy matter (16 steps + a “bar” above which can only reached if the individual has performed well). The starting salary for a lecturer is €36K and the competition is open to everyone in the world – sound attractive?
And I’d add to Penfan’s remarks, that ‘starting salary’ is what many lecturers dream of: even after a PhD and Post-Doc and decades of teaching and research experience, many still scrape by on filling in for tenured staff or plugging gaps caused by hiring freezes to the tune of several hours (paid) a week. Academia is not a nice place to be unless you’re snugly ensconced in the upper branches.
As a complete aside, I doubt there is a plc in the country with as impressive as the boardroom pictured above. Power to the people, eh?
Academia is so cut-throat because the stakes are so low!
So basically it may be unconstitutional for treating non union members as if they are union members and applying the results of any union decision to them also.
IFUT are not the only ones taking legal advice I heard over the weekend.
2 Commercial Semi State companies and their employees are also taking legal advice. The company’s employees have been hit by the pay cuts for those over 65K and additional working hours for those below 65K. The problem is these employees are NOT state employees, so have individual contracts with the companies. The people being hit were NEVER part of Croke Park 1 or Croke Park 2. The employees were NEVER part of redeployment. In fact one of the companies affected has had a pay freeze for 5 years with no increments (they never had this perk) & has reduced staff numbers through redundancies by about 1/3. The people affected were not part of the Haddington Road agreement, were never even consulted, some only found out from RTE News at 6, but the Government are forcing them to be bound by the legislation.
Basically the legislation is forcing these companies to apply pay cuts & longer working hours without negotiation or approval of the employees, which is itself in breach of Employment legislation.
So there you have it people this Government has launched the first attack at pushing ahead with reducing the wages of everybody in the country, and ignoring existing employment legislation to achieve it.
Is that photo an ad for healthy eating ;-)
Centre of table looks like a Coffin!!!!!!
I suppose then the few million people who work in the private sector who work without any of this protectionist labour cartel nonsense, I suppose the terms of their employment are unconstitutional as well? Whatever adjustments are made to the public sector, in terms of who gets cut or who doesn’t, it should be across the board, this messing with reaching side deals with sectional interests will serve absolutely no party. Anyone on more than 60K should be absolutely fair game for cuts of at least 10% to their core pay.
If an individual is a member of the civil/public sector then they are subject to any pay-cut their employer, the government, may introduce. This is as, unlike an ordinary employer, their employer is also the body that makes the law and can change their pay-cut from unlawful to lawful through legislation.
The Haddington road agreement is an Industrial Relations agreement which falls well below legislation in terms of force of law. In it, if the employee agrees to certain terms, the employer agrees to exempt them from the pay-cut.
In broad terms, whether the employee is or is not a member of the trade union is irrelevant. ALL employees are subject to the pay-cuts. Those who negotiate a reprieve with the government are exempted. So those who are unionised but reject the agreement and those who are not unionised are treated the same, not differently.
@Flinders
For PS workers earning between 65K and 100K, the 5.5-8% pay cut will be restored after 4.5 years, IF AND ONLY IF they sign up to HaddRd. A “no’ vote will mean a 5.5-8% pay cut, fullstop – a considerable longterm effect, I think most would agree.
@Penfan
Quotes from the above article;
1. The union’s general sectary said people who are not members of a trade union will be automatically treated as if they had voted no.
2. “It would seem that for members not associated with a representative body, the Minister will be required either to make a special exception in each case, otherwise they will be treated the same as if they had rejected the Agreement”.
So there is a way for a non-union member to accept the deal; special exception from the minister.
So a Trade Union pays a Senior Counsel to advise them on how a non-union member can benefit from the deal. Does that make sense? This is a nonsense.
Penfan
Except for the employees of the 2 Commercial State Companies named in the legislation.
Those employees are having pay cuts and longer working hours encorced upon them, even though under law they are considered the same as any employee of a private firm, so these measures are against current employment law. The pay cuts and increased working hours to these people will NOT be reversed. These people also do not have job security unlike the civil/public servants.
This is the first shot in FG’s attack on the wages of everybody in the country. Should this bill stand as it is, pay cuts for other Commercial State Companies employees will follow. After that everybody in the private sector will be hit with pay cuts, even the school kid working in the local corner shop at weekends.
the guy sitting at the table in a shabby old t shirt says it all when it comes to discussions with unions….
So you of the Unions to be so worried about non-union member.
have your say