Members of nine trade unions, including the State's largest union Siptu, have voted in favour of the draft national pay agreement.
Siptu, which announced the results of its ballot tonight, joined eight other trade unions today in accepting the deal. It represents about 200,000 workers in total.
The union said members voted by 80 per cent to 20 per cent in a secret ballot in favour of supporting the terms.
Nurses, bank officials, civil and public servants, retail workers and journalists also backed the draft deal, their unions said today.
Siptu general president Jack O’Connor said he hoped the proposed terms, including a 6 per cent pay rise for all workers over 21 months, would now be accepted by the special delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions when it convenes next Monday, November 17th.
“The next step is to ensure that the measures provided for in the legislative programme to strengthen people’s rights at work and to combat exploitation, including the measures outstanding from the last agreement, are implemented without further delay. The pay terms must also be applied expeditiously across the economy," Mr O'Connor said in a statement.
He said the pay terms in the proposed second phase of the Towards 2016agreement now compare somewhat better against the background of declining inflation than when they were negotiated.
"Nonetheless they still represent a moderate proposition which will provide a platform upon which to develop a response to the global challenges facing everyone who goes to work in Ireland.”
Mr O'Connor said it was incumbent on the Government to ensure it discharged its obligations within the structures of the overall Towards 2016agreement.
He said the Government must exercise its role effectively as the procurer of public goods and services to ensure that "those employers who do not comply with good employment practices and who do not implement the increases provided for in the national agreement obtain public contracts over those who do”.
Earlier, Impact, the country’s biggest public service union said almost half of its 55,000 members voted in the ballot with 90 per cent casting their vote in favour of the deal.
Mandate, which represents 50,000 members in the retail, wholesale and bar trade sectors, also said it intended to support the deal at the delegate conference next week.
Members of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) and the Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) voted in favour of accepting the agreement this morning.
TEEU general secretary Owen Wills said after the count that although the union executive had recommended acceptance of the agreement, he was surprised at the scale of the four-to-one majority.
The TEEU has about 45,000 members, including craftworkers, technicians, skilled operatives, general workers, technical administration and supervisory staff.
The IBOA said its members had voted for the first time in over a decade to support a national wage agreement.
The union’s executive committee, while stopping short of formally recommending acceptance of the pay deal, had advised its members that it was the best outcome that could be achieved through negotiation and without recourse to industrial action.
The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) which represents nurses and midwives also voted in favour of the agreement as did the Union of Construction & Allied Trades & Technicians (UCATT) which represents 13,000 craft workers in the construction industry, local authorities, the HSE and government departments. UCATT members voted by a margin of five to one to accept the terms of the deal.
Members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted by 90 per cent in favour of the agreement.
The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (AHCPS) which represents over 3,000 senior civil servants, voted 93 per cent in favour of the deal. The Civil and Public Services Union (CPSU) is due to announce the results of its ballot later today, as is Siptu, the country's largest union with over 200,000 members.
Members of the Civil and Public Service Union voted by 60 per cent to 40 per cent (4,462 to 3,028 votes) in favour of the new pay agreement, the union said tonight. The CPSU executive committee had recommended that members vote to reject the deal.
The union's general secretary Blair Horan said he was "not surprised at the result because at meetings around the country members had indicated that they were not prepared to risk turning down the only offer on the table".
Yesterday, Unite, the country's second largest trade union with over 60,000 members, voted by a three-to-one majority against the agreement. The union's regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said a national agreement was no longer the way to ensure employee rights.
The agreement provides for a pay increase of 6 per cent for all workers over 21 months, to be paid in two phases, with a 0.5 per cent increase at the end of the agreement for workers earning less than €430.49 per week, or around €22,463 a year.