The country’s largest craft trade union is to seek pay increases of at least 5 per cent for workers in profitable companies and sectors.
The general secretary of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) Eamon Devoy said that one of its main policies was to protect the living standards of members. He said given that inflation had returned to the economy, the only way this could be achieved was to seek wage increases.
The biennial conference of the union today overwhelmingly passed an emergency motion instructing the union to present "significant pay claims" in all profitable companies and sectors.
The motion said that these claims "should be for at least 5 per cent".
The TEEU with around 40,000 members is the second largest trade union in the manufacturing, construction and energy sectors.
In his address to the conference Mr Devoy described as "sickening" the revelation by the ESRI this week that executive directors in some companies received 27 times more in pension contributions than ordinary employees as well as 10 times more in earnings.
He said such pension contributions were subsidised to the tune of €2.7 billion each year by the exchequer "while the "sword of Damocles hangs over the State pension and the few fringe benefits enjoyed by older citizens, the majority of whom have no other source of income".
"It is no accident that this growing and increasingly flagrant return to the worst era of robber baron capitalism coincides with a decline in trade union organisation."
He said that in the past strong unions had been the most effective way of curbing capitalism.
"They ensured fairer economic distribution by forcing employers to concede a bigger share of the cake to workers, be it in manufacturing, financial services or other sectors."