The revolutionary credibility of Carolann Duggan, who has run three times for top jobs in SIPTU on the basis of opposition to social partnership, has taken a sharp knock - her fellow employees at Bausch and Lombe in Waterford have agreed a new partnership deal that includes a four-year industrial peace. A dark development indeed for an advocate of workers' agitation. But then this agitator has never been on strike either.
Duggan, a member of the Socialist Workers' Party, hasn't been able to persuade her colleagues to go out on the picket lines, let alone man the barricades. With SIPTU president Jimmy Somers due to retire at the end of the year, a new election beckons. Duggan is expected to contest yet again but with the frontrunner being Jack O'Connor, who represents the midlands and her own southeast, her chances are not considered great. Having gained a very impressive 42 per cent in her first election, her percentage has gone down since. That was 1996 and only some trade unionists agreed with industrial peace; now labour shortages and the Celtic Tiger have changed things somewhat.