THE GENERAL secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), David Begg, has said while the collapse of social partnership may make life harder for the trade union movement it would also liberate it to advocate and campaign for its own policies “without constraint”.
In an internal discussion document prepared for a special meeting this week, he assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the trade union movement.
The executive council of Ictu is to hold the meeting on Wednesday to formulate a response to the withdrawal of both the Government and employers from the national pay agreement. It will also consider the failure of the Government to respond to its alternative plan for recovery.
Ictu has already agreed to establish a commission to review the organisation, structures and procedures of the trade union movement. In his assessment Mr Begg says the movement is the largest civil society organisation in the country with 840,000 members island-wide. He says it is the only “actor in the market either interested in or capable of achieving social justice”.
He writes that the recession and change in the balance of power with capital has weakened the trade union movement. He says it is losing members through redundancy and that its enemies have been able to achieve “a certain amount of demonising of the public sector and individual trade union leaders”. He says they have also split public and private sector workers.
“We have no control and little influence on the means by which our message is mediated either to the public at large or to our own members. Our resources are wholly inadequate and to some degree misdeployed and duplicated.”
Mr Begg also says part of the unions’ organisation is “shambolic” and that some of the movement’s internal debate is “disingenuous at times”.
“The mere fact that 56 unions try to act without co-ordination or optimisation of resources is a serious disadvantage. We lack the discipline to decide on a course of action and adhere to it.
“We have ceded too much ground in the high-tech sector (excluding pharma). Difficult though it will be we should try to regain ground in what will be the most important sector of the economy,” he says.
Mr Begg also says being outside partnership liberates the movement to advocate for its own policies without constraint and provides an opportunity “to re-connect with out members free of guilt by association with any aspect of Government policy”.
Mr Begg says social partnership was valued for the stability it gave but that it did not fundamentally alter the nature of society.
He says the demise of the public and private sector pay agreements “leaves us without a formal channel to influence policy”.
Mr Begg says a number of issues arising from recent partnership agreements, such as the status of the National Implementation Body, the labour market legislative programme and the new pensions framework, have been left “hanging in the air”.