DELEGATES to the special delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have voted overwhelmingly to enter talks on a new national agreement to succeed the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
The vote to enter talks was taken at a special delegate conference of the ICTU in Liberty Hall, Dublin, yesterday. Although delegates voted by 253 to 50 to open negotiations - with 14 abstentions - all the delegates speaking in favour of the motion made it clear the new agreement would have to be radically different from previous ones if they were to accept it.
The general secretary of the ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, summing up the debate, said that "national agreements as we've known them for the last decade have come to an end."
He said: "At this stage of the process it is clear that the process of social partnership either develops or it dies."
The vice president of SIPTU, Mr Jimmy Somers, said union recognition was a key issue. "We are sick and tired of being told at national level that we are `partners' but, at local level, we are pariahs."
There could be no more "pig in the poke tax packages". Tax reforms would have to be set out in detail and over a three year period.
The general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Dan Murphy, said there was a downside to national agreements, but they had delivered a steady improvement in living standards for members.
They gave unions an opportunity to have an impact on all issues affecting members' living standards, including taxation and social spending. It was a position "for which unions in most other countries would give their eye teeth".
While the general secretary of Mandate, Mr Owen Nulty, said his union would support talks, he expressed concern at the lack of commitment to social partnership by employers. In the commercial sector his union had been in a six month recognition strike with the Early Learning Centre in Cork, and two strikes with Dunnes Stores over a Labour Court award.
Some employers in the sector were replacing full time staff with part timers because it was cheaper to employ five part timers for 40 hours a week than one full time worker. It might be cheaper for the employer, but not for the taxpayer, Mr Nulty said, as the part time staff signed on the Live Register.
He criticised the Department of Enterprise and Employment for refusing to introduce stricter regulations governing Sunday working and zero hour contracts.
The general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, said any new programme had to deliver on "sensible objectives. Objectives can be raised to the sky but they have to be delivered on the ground."
He said people needed to clear their minds on the way forward. "For a start let us recognise that improving education, health, security and services costs money. That money is raised by taxes."
Senator O'Toole added: "Our members have to get real on this matter. It is a bit of a joke to see `Axe the Tax' stickers on cars of teachers, gardai, nurses and civil servants. It is equally unacceptable to have to listen to farmers attacking public spending when they are demanding more, and receiving more than any other group in Irish society."
The general secretary of the Communications Workers' Union, Mr David Begg, said developments since 1987 suggested that the need for a new agreement was even more compelling today than in the past. The globalisation of markets, the eruption of 1.2 billion extra skilled workers on the market because of the collapse of communism and the pervasive influence of new technology meant there were hard choices to be made.
The vast majority of ICTU affiliated unions voted for talks on a new national agreement. The unions voting against were the Manufacturing Science Finance union (MSF); the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union; the Teachers' Union of Ireland; the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union; and the National Union of Journalists.
The Civil and Public Services Union abstained.