Mandate is to campaign for a national minimum wage of £5 an hour and seek its introduction before the Government deadline of April 2000. While welcoming the Government's adoption of a national minimum wage in principle, Mandate's general secretary, Mr Owen Nulty, has said he is "dismayed at the time lapse before the new rate may become operable".
Delegates at the union's biennial conference in Dublin yesterday were sceptical about how minimum rates would be enforced. Their support for a continuing campaign to win £5 an hour - the target set by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions last year - was also based in part on confusion over whether the £4.40p recommended by the Government commission will be revised upwards to take account of inflation, or national pay rounds, between now and 2000.
While the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, accepted the recommendations of the commission in principle, she has referred the implementation to the social partners for negotiation. The implementation date of April 2000 is the earliest provided for in Partnership 2000.
However, this did not impress Mandate delegates. There was obvious dissatisfaction among them at national agreements generally. The vast majority of the union's 35,000 members work in low-pay occupations, and they feel that not enough is being done by the Government to meet commitments to lighten the tax burden on them in Partnership 2000.
They are also disappointed at the net benefits of the pay increases on offer. The union's national industrial officer, Mr John Douglas, told delegates that the average increase Mandate members would receive under Partnership 2000 was £14 a week. For someone already earning £4.40 an hour the Budget would put only an extra £1 a week in their pocket.
A motion down for today's conference calls for the union to withdraw from Partnership 2000 "and pursue proper wages and conditions on behalf of our members". Another resolution says that any future agreements should include significant flat-rate increases for the low paid rather than percentage pay rises.
The union leadership is opposed to the motion to withdraw from Partnership 2000 and it is unlikely that it will be passed. But that will not stop the union from campaigning against low pay at local level.
One feature of the minimum wage commission report that is causing particular problems for Mandate is the proposal that new entrants to the workforce would be entitled to only 75 per cent of the minimum rate in their first year of employment. This would rise to 80 per cent in the second year, 95 per cent in the third and the full rate would apply from year four.