Negotiations on a successor to Sustaining Progress are expected to get under way early next month after Siptu's national executive decided yesterday to back the opening of talks.
The executive's recommendation is expected to be ratified by the union's membership at a special delegate conference on January 31st.
That should pave the way for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) to formally accept a Government invitation to enter talks on a new national agreement. The talks were due to begin two months ago but have been delayed because of trade union concerns about exploitation of migrant workers and the displacement of jobs.
While Ibec, the employers body, says it is willing to engage on these issues, it remains far from clear that an agreement can be achieved.
Unions are seeking a range of measures to underpin employment standards before negotiations begin on pay rates for the duration of any new deal.
Ictu president Peter McLoone said union members were concerned that after 18 years of social partnership it was possible for companies to displace existing workers and to seek to exploit others.
"Congress has to restore confidence in the process by satisfying members that the institutions of partnership are robust enough to thwart any employer seeking to replace its workforce in that way," he said. "Unless we can satisfy people that social partnership is capable of providing that kind of protection, we will not get the outcome [of negotiations] through a ballot."
Ibec director of industrial relations Brendan McGinty indicated that employers had no difficulty addressing employment standards from the outset, as requested by Ictu.
There was nothing unusual in that approach, he pointed out, given that pay tended to be one of the last items on the table in any partnership talks.
But he said employers would oppose any employment measures that impinged on Ireland's competitiveness or damaged its attractiveness to inward investors. It had to be recognised, he said, that one of the attractions of the Irish economy was its operation of a flexible labour market.
"We have to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that yes, we must have employment standards that are capable of being enforced, but at the same time we must not introduce further regulation at a time when we have, in essence, full employment and everybody who wants a job can get a job," he said.
Siptu president Jack O'Connor said it was possible, in the light of unions' engagement with the Government in recent months, to see the possibility of a deal. But it would "presume too much" to say anything more than that.
Meanwhile, membership of the new benchmarking body, which will examine pay rates in the public service, is expected to be finalised today following a meet- ing of Ictu's public services committee and the Department of Finance.
Former Public Service Executive Union deputy president Tom McKevitt is expected to be the second Ictu nominee to the body, alongside former Siptu general secretary Bill Attley. As reported in The Irish Times on Wednesday, senior counsel Dan O'Keeffe is to chair the new body, which will issue a report in 2007.