Trade union leaders have been criticised by a leading industrial relations expert for losing the debate on recognition in the workplace by adopting a "softly softly" approach to the issue.
Dr Patrick Gunnigle of the University of Limerick has also accused the Government of indecision, by trying to be supportive of trade unions at national level but refusing to confront the problem posed by companies which refuse to deal with union representatives.
Dr Gunnigle's intervention in the debate comes on the eve of a crucial meeting of the High Level Group on Trade Union Recognition this week. Trade union leaders are expected to press Government representatives to extend the Labour Court's powers, so the court can intervene in industrial disputes where companies refuse to recognise unions and boycott the State's industrial relations institutions.
They will be arguing that this does not constitute "mandatory" trade union recognition, which the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation has warned it will not accept. The trade union leaders say the Labour Court should only be empowered to act where workers have voluntarily joined a trade union, sought representation and gone to the Labour Court because the employer has refused to meet them.
So far representatives of the Departments of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, as well as the IDA, have proved reluctant to accept the trade union proposals for fear it would drive away foreign investment, particularly from the US. However, concerns that such companies would move to Britain have been lessened by the British government's "Fair Play at Work" proposals, which go a lot further than anything proposed by the ICTU.
Dr Gunnigle saw last week's call by a senior ICTU leader, the ATGWU's Mr Mick O'Reilly, for the abolition of legislation banning secondary picketing as "a bargaining chip" in the debate.
The unions' strategy was flawed, Dr Gunnigle said. In its anxiety to avoid marginalisation, as had happened to the British TUC under the Tories, the ICTU had concentrated on social partnership at national level. It now had a problem at local level, which was reflected by "a dramatic decline in union penetration amongst new firms in manufacturing and in internationally traded services.
"The outcome of the deliberations of the High Level Group on Trade Union Recognition is absolutely critical for the unions," he said. They could only maintain their role as key players at national level if they became stronger at enterprise level. "Unions cannot have their place in the sun without more effort at local level," he said. The ICTU should have put more pressure on the Labour Party to make union recognition a political issue.