Tortuous negotiations over the weekend brought unions and employers closer to a new national partnership agreement. Industry and Employment Correspondent, Chris Dooley reports.
Union and employer representatives finally got around to negotiating a national pay deal yesterday, two days after partnership talks re-opened.
From Friday afternoon, when the parties returned to Government Buildings for one last effort to save the partnership process, the focus had been exclusively on two other issues which had proved almost as intractable as pay.
The thinking was that if agreement could be reached on union recognition and compliance, sufficient momentum might be created to break the logjam on pay.
"Compliance" is shorthand for the employers' demand that any agreement must contain strict provisions requiring unions to adhere to its terms and not pursue "top- up" claims.
For unions, recognition has been the key non-pay issue in the talks.
The unions' initial demand was for legislation, similar to that applying in the UK, requiring employers by law to recognise unions. That was rejected by both the Government and employers last month, but unions continued to press for, at least, a strengthening of "right to bargain" procedures introduced in 2001.
These provide for voluntary resolution of recognition disputes, in the Labour Court if necessary.
The ground work for a deal in both areas had already been done, in behind-the-scenes negotiations last week, before the sides returned to Government Buildings on Friday.
Any notion that a deal was "in the bag", however, was dispelled on Friday night at a lively meeting of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions executive council.
A number of council members, who were hearing details of the possible compromise for the first time, made it clear to the ICTU leadership that they did not like the direction in which the talks were going.
The meeting lasted for nearly three hours and provided the union negotiators with further evidence, as if they hadn't enough already, that an agreement acceptable to members would be extremely difficult to achieve.
IBEC, the employers' representative body, remained equally pessimistic on Friday night, following the adjournment of talks, that a deal could be done.
Nevertheless, both sides returned to Government Buildings, for talks being overseen by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr Dermot McCarthy, at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
"Tortuous" is the word used by both sides to describe the eight hours of negotiations which followed.
Still focusing exclusively on compliance and union recognition, the day was spent "taking out paragraphs, putting in sentences, deleting words, changing the emphasis one way or the other", according to one participant.
At no stage on Saturday did the parties negotiate directly; instead, Mr McCarthy and his officials shuttled from room to room, helping both sides inch closer to a deal. Shortly after 7 p.m., an adjournment was announced, with the sides due to formally re-start talks at 2 p.m. yesterday
Many of the negotiators were back in Government Buildings yesterday morning, however, attempting to complete a deal on both of the issues under discussion.
On recognition, the unions had succeeded in securing improvements to the existing procedures, which would see cases being resolved with more speed in future.
On compliance, the unions' concern that IBEC's previous demands could enable employers to get out of paying the terms of a new deal, and leave unions with no comeback, had also been addressed.
Agreement on the two issues appeared to be in sight by lunchtime, but it proved elusive. As the talks continued late into the night, pay, compliance and union recognition all remained as contentious as ever.