Siptu out of touch in seeking 5% pay rise, says employers’ group

The employers' group Ibec has criticised as "reckless and foolish" calls by the trade union Siptu for a 5 per cent pay rise across the economy.

It has also warned that such demands could have implications for any new tri-partite social dialogue talks to be convened by the Government.

Minimum living wage

On Saturday Jack O’Connor, general secretary of Siptu, said the union wanted increases of 5 per cent in the public and private sectors and that it would be seeking the introduction of a minimum living wage of €11.45 per hour.

However, Ibec head of industrial relations Maeve McElwee said the target of a 5 per cent pay increase was “unrealistic and out of touch with economic reality”.

“The threat alone could force companies to rethink recruitment plans and will create harmful discord in workplaces where wage expectation have been escalated beyond economic reality.”

She said the call for a living wage of €11.45 per hour was “utterly impractical and contrary to our understanding of function of [the Government’s new] Low Pay Commission”.

Ms McElwee said such a move would destroy job creation and set back efforts to reduce unemployment and would have an “exponential impact in inevitable knock-on pay relativity claims”.

Government Ministers have recently hinted at some form of social dialogue involving unions and employers which could examine issues such as pay, tax and welfare.

However, Ms McElwee said if it was Siptu's position and potentially the position of the overall Irish Congress of Trade Unions to look for such increases across the economy, "that would be too narrow a space to be getting into".

On the offensive

Speaking in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin to mark the anniversary of the death in 1947 of union leader James Larkin, Mr O'Connor said the union movement was "back on the offensive" to begin regaining ground lost by workers during the economic crisis.

He called on social democrats, left-wing republicans and independent socialists to join together on a common platform with the aim of winning the next general election.