Seventeen years after the last public sector shutdown, Wednesday’s strike got under way at Dublin waste facilities, the city’s port and other locations overnight.
Tens of thousands of workers are stopping at their workplace gates and joining the action this morning at schools, hospitals, courts, council buildings and hundreds of other public buildings. Huge disruption is expected, including in the private sector, with many parents having to stay at home to mind children, thousands of hospital appointments cancelled and court cases adjourned, as well as driving test centres and many other Government services closed for the day.
The background to this strike is very different from the one in November 2009, when the government was reeling after the financial crash and workers were protesting severe cuts, some already made and others that were being flagged for the budget to come.
This time, the public finances are in good shape, even if they are unhealthily reliant on corporation taxes, and unions say their members have some catching up to do, due to spikes in inflation and substantial increases to the cost of daily basics like housing, food and fuel.
Acrimony has also been building behind the scenes, however, and the unions contend that Government is still doing business as if the country is in a financial crisis, with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, only established at that time, regularly curtailing its ability to negotiate locally with line departments and agencies, or vetoing deals they think are over the line.
There is also the issue of local bargaining, a component of the last pay deal, which was due to be worth 1 per cent of pay then and a further 2 per cent in the current deal.
The unions felt they should have wide-ranging latitude to address outstanding issues in their own areas but even where their departments agreed, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform often intervened to stop the payments being processed. More than a year after the money was supposed to be due, thousands of staff have yet to receive it. For others, it has been processed on the eve of the current industrial action.
[ Unions urge Taoiseach to intervene in bid to avert public sector strikeOpens in new window ]
That seems to explain some of the union side’s reluctance to attend the Workplace Relations Commission in recent days, while there is a frustration among the unions’ leadership with the failure of Jack Chambers to address their position directly before the last deal expired, or in the almost four months since.
There is lingering anger too over the Government’s decision to proceed with a VAT cut to hospitality that the unions argued was completely unjustified, and its reaction to the fuel protests.
The ballots held by unions suggested very high levels of support for action, although there is an element of members wanting to give their negotiators the strongest possible hand. With some of the unions not paying any strike pay, and others paying only very modest amounts or waiting for the dispute to progress before paying out, the strikers will feel the impact of their own action in their pockets.
Public opinion, seemingly supportive at the moment, may also shift if next Wednesday’s second strike and further actions go ahead.
And the apparent move by Chambers on the issue of when pay can be discussed will make it harder for those driving strategy to continue refusing invitations to get around a table and discuss their grievances.
That they will have to compromise on their current demands as part of that process seems inevitable, but the Government did not help itself by setting aside €1.2 billion for pay increases next year, a figure that is hard to reconcile with what appears to be required to address the situation.
Obviously, the Government, already the target of criticism for its increased spending, could reveal how much it is really prepared to devote to addressing the dispute. Chambers suggested on Tuesday night that this too should be the subject of normal negotiations.
Getting those started remains the first challenge, but the Government is banking on it becoming easier once the unions have made their point today about the anger of their members.