- General Secretary also slams Dunnes Stores: "moral compass completely skewed"
Congress General Secretary Patricia King has said today that talks on pay restoration in the public sector "are about pay restoration and nothing else."
Addressing delegates at the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU) conference in Killarney, Patricia King said: "Apart from those workers who tragically lost their jobs and livelihoods, public sector workers paid a bigger price than most for an economic crash they didn't cause.
Ruling out the use of new talks to discuss further "concessions", the General Secretary said: "Nobody can question the public sector contribution.....Public sector workers have given all they are going to give and we are now entering on a public sector pay restoration programme – nothing else."
Turning to the ongoing dispute in Dunnes" Stores, Ms King strongly condemned the behaviour of the company, before and after the April 2 stoppage.
"It is clear this employer's moral compass is completely skewed....these workers have been subjected to the most appalling and wholly unacceptable employer behaviour: they have been threatened, punished and in some cases dismissed.
"Dunnes Stores, together with some like-minded employers believe the employer/ employee relationship is entirely one-sided: they have the power, workers do as they say....Their philosophy is clear - nothing gets in the way of profit making. This is a cruel and unyielding philosophy.
"However, the law of our land accepts this," Patrica King said.
She said pending legislation on Collective Bargaining "has the capacity to remedy a sizeable proportion of the crucial issues in this dispute, especially its anti-victimisation provisions."
A solution would also involve legislative change to provide for banded hour contracts, including transposition of an EU directive on Part-Time Workers.
'this can be done quickly and I am disappointed that it has not happened yet. I do not think it is an accident that this legislation has not been published. We would be naïve to think that this is solely due to political ineptitude.
'there are strong forces at play here whose interests would not be served by this," Ms King concluded.
