Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Yes. The Public Service Pay and Pensions Bill is obviously an implementation of the public service stability agreement. As such, some public sector workers who voted to accept the deal will get some pay restoration, which they very badly need and obviously deserve. However, there is something rotten in the Bill in that it represents a very Thatcherite tactic of divide and conquer. Other workers will suffer from the Bill, namely those who rejected the PSSA because of the real and specific impact it would have on their lives. All three teachers' unions have voted no, and the first thing this brings up is that no one should have the right to vote on other people's work conditions. It should be a democratic right that if one is not impacted in the same way by something, one should not have the right to force other people to accept it.

The Bill is negative overall. It compounds and continues the two-tier pay inequality for all young public servants - again, some more than others, but all. How disgraceful it is that this is being maintained. The Minister's speaking note reads, "There is also a legal entitlement to that restoration, since the FEMPI Acts which significantly reduced ... pay and pension entitlements were predicated on a financial emergency of unprecedented severity from which we have now, thankfully, emerged". How, then, is there any justification for maintaining those austerity measures that were placed on public sector workers? There is none whatsoever. No change can occur to heal the real wound that has been inflicted on young workers on unequal pay for the whole three years of this agreement, and the Minister's words are no justification for maintaining that. The saying, "Never waste a good crisis" is being implemented.

The so-called pension levy, which was meant to be a temporary measure for the bailout, is not removed; it remains, and there is no prospect it will ever go. It will therefore continue to reduce the pay of most public servants. What is particularly nefarious about the Bill is that punishment is being meted out to all those who did not accept the deal, the three teachers' unions in particular. I love the language in the briefing document. This is classic "Yes Minister" stuff where it reads:

Q.2 How are public servants who do not sign up [to be] treated?

To incentivise adherence to the collective approach, the Bill provides for less favourable terms for public servants who are not covered.

Did anyone ever hear of such a formulation? An incentive is meant to be attractive. The briefing document further outlines what will happen to those who do not agree to the deal when it states:

(a) Slower pay restoration ...

(b) The suspension of [increments] (up to [2021]);

(c) A lower entry threshold for ASC.

In other words, they will pay more of this so-called pension levy that was introduced as a temporary measure. I remember it because I was teaching at the time it was introduced. This is outrageous. Teachers will now be punished, have their increments frozen and continue at a higher pension levy. This is an absolute attack on the right to be in a union, on democratic rights and on the right of people to decide their own fate. People in other unions should therefore take note of this. The whole common basic scale has been completely upended, and this division will now be maintained. People will be on different rates and will have different punishments meted out to them.

Did the Minister of State ever wonder why it is teachers who seem continually to vote against these measures? Perhaps the wider public does not understand. In this instance all three teacher unions voted against. Does the Minister of State remember? The Government was happy to try to isolate the ASTI in the previous agreement, but now all three teacher unions are at one on this, and the reason is that teachers have been more impacted by pay inequity. Young teachers appointed after 2011 have already lost over €26,000 in earnings that they would have had if they were on the same scale as their pre-2011 counterparts, but they have also lost earnings due to the other pay cuts that their senior colleagues faced as well. This is the so-called locked-out generation, young so-called professionals - young workers - who cannot afford to pay rent, buy a house, get a mortgage or do many other things previous generations were able to do. It is an infliction of worse conditions on young people and the kind of policy that resulted in the revolt that led to Jeremy Corbyn's massive increase in the vote share for the Labour Party in Britain. The Government should take note of this.

I was talking to a young teacher on the protest outside before this debate. He made the point that teachers are always concerned if they take any industrial action about what will happen to the children. We asked him about children that he might like to have at some stage in the future. Did they not count as well? I believe that parents and the public in general understand this. They understand why teachers and others are not willing to accept unequal pay. To teachers I say stick to your guns, organise and put on massive pressure. This Government is hanging on by a thread, as we saw over the weekend. It is on its last legs. The arrangement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is mortally wounded. They are both at one on this issue, of no recovery for workers. They are unanimous about that. Massive pressure can be put on Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour, members of which are not even here tonight, to reverse this.

The Government wonders why there is a huge shortage of teachers. It is because their choice is to fight or to emigrate. Why would any young person who went to huge trouble to get qualifications, not just primary degrees and HDips but also masters and all kinds of other qualifications that teacher now routinely acquire, stay and put up with this when they could be amply well paid in other countries? What will we do about the brain drain? We have already heard reports about unqualified teachers teaching in schools while qualified teachers have had to emigrate because they cannot live in this country. Rents in my constituency are now routinely €1,600 to €2,000 per month. How could any young teacher afford to pay that, or any other young worker for that matter?

In his opening remarks the Minister said there had been considerable sacrifices for a decade of austerity, a lost decade for many people, that had reaped benefits for the economy. Yet, this is the reward that workers get. He also said that our teachers, nurses, gardaí and other public servants and their retired counterparts are deserving of the pay and pension restoration set out in the Bill. However, teachers will not get any restoration from the Bill, so that was a little disingenuous of the Minister. He did not even make reference to the fact that people who do not accept the tyranny, the diktat, that is handed down will not get anything and will be punished. People should take a lesson from this. In the past, if workers did not agree with a pay deal, they simply did not get the pay deal. Now not only do they not get the pay deal, but they also get other things taken from them for daring not to agree to the pay deal. This is the new neo-liberal normal in this country. We need to build a political alternative and a trade union alternative. It is not a good reflection on the trade union leadership that it has accepted such an erosion into long-standing pay and conditions and inflicted that on a new generation.

It has become clear that we are moving on from the previous easy target that was young workers. What is happening now is that the Government and the establishment have decided to target older workers by going after their pensions. This is a very sinister development that should give everybody cause for alarm. I hope the three teacher unions will come together to decide what united action they can take to address this. They have every reason to hold their nerve. As I said, a general election is unquestionably on the cards soon. The unions should make political capital while they can.

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