Boycott of politicians begins

Boycott begins


Westport councillor claims council workers are being ‘insubordinate’

Anton McNulty

A COUNTY councillor has slammed the decision by public servants to boycott politicians from all parties by refusing to take calls from them as part of their protest against pay cuts.
Last Thursday the Divisional Executive Council (DEC) of IMPACT decided to withdraw their co-operation with politicians of all parties who seek information from public servants working in local authorities and the health service.
Westport Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn (pictured), who has been a critic of the type of industrial action undertaken by IMPACT and its workers at Mayo County Council described the decision as undemocratic. Before the DEC decision was made, IMPACT members working in Mayo County Council had been instructed not to deal with Cllr Flynn in any way after he had criticised their action at a Council meeting where he commented that ‘the lunatics had taken over’ the council.
Speaking to The Mayo News, Cllr Flynn felt the decision made by IMPACT was illegal and in his view the workers were ‘insubordinate’.
“I think what they are doing is illegal and undemocratic and something you’d expect from a communist state rather than a Republic. If the unions have a difficultly with me they should at least listen to my side of the story. My problem with the stoppages is that we had an Area Meeting and it was 24 hours before when we were told we couldn’t hold it. We were due to discuss the roads budget for 2010, which still has not been approved. My view is that it is insubordinate, if they want to strike let them strike instead of this situation where they are getting paid without doing their work,” he said.
The withdrawal of co-operation by the IMPACT workers had previously only affected Fianna FΡil and Green Party politicians but Padraig Mulligan, Assistant General Secretary with IMPACT told The Mayo News that the DEC had decided to extend the measure to politicians of all parties.
He said that their members will refuse to take calls and e-mails and deal with any correspondence received by politicians and will also refuse to answer phonecalls for half a day on one day of the week.
“Our members have been informed that they are not to co-operate with any councillor or TD from all political parties. They are disgruntled by these pay cuts and are demanding action over this. We understand that the country is in a mess but we believe there is a fairer way to deal with this and our members will not accept these cuts. This action will affect council meetings outside working hours and co-operation at meetings during working hours will be kept to a minimum,” he said.
Mayo TD Michael Ring explained that he has sympathy for the lower-paid workers who he said should not have been affected by the cuts. However, he said that withdrawing their services from the politicians would only hurt the general public.
“I have great sympathy for the people on the lower income and it was wrong for the government to hit them. At present it is only the Passport Office in Dublin which is affecting me to date and a lot of people are under pressure. If the council workers withdraw their co-operation from me it will only affect my ability to do my job and this will only hurt the people looking for help,” he said.
County Secretary, John Condon said that ‘obviously’ there had been some disruptions by the industrial action but the council had been working ‘fairly well’. He said that while staff may not be answering their phones it did not mean they were not doing any work. He added that staff not working overtime were not affecting the council because they did not have the money to pay for overtime.
Yesterday, public sector management and unions commenced two weeks of intensive negotiations in a bid to resolve Government pay cuts, and Mr Mulligan explained that other forms of industrial action had been put on hold until then. He added that if the talks were positive they may try to build on that positivity.