THE national agreement, Partnership 2000, would do little to help the low paid, the Mandate general secretary told the annual conference in Waterford. Although retailing employed 12 per cent of the active workforce, the needs of employees within the sector received scant attention from the Government.
Referring to problems of low pay, lack of training, union recognition and Sunday trading, Mr Owen Nulty said: "We could be forgiven for thinking that the reluctance on the part of the Government to take the necessary legislative action is due in no small measure to the level of financial support political parties receive from big business interests and, in particular, from the commercial sector."
If the Government was serious in its quest for quality employment within the retail sector it would address the problems "even if such action results in some loss of funding for the political parties concerned. Failure to act will consign another generation of Irish workers mainly young and female, to the uncertainties of temporary and casual employment for the foreseeable future."
Mr Nulty said Mandate members "were rightly critical of the new programme, as it did not include any special deal for low paid workers who will still receive a lesser increase than those on higher incomes. In previous programmes special previsions were made for other sectors, for example the public service and the construction industry.
"But while Government ministers acknowledged that the commercial sector is one of growing importance and has great potential for job creation, it continues to be treated as the Cinderella sector.
"It is increasingly becoming the sector of transient workers, very few of whom see any real prospect in endeavouring to carve a career for themselves in the retail trades."
Mr Nulty criticised the failure of Partnership 2000 to guarantee union recognition by employers. He also targeted employers attitudes towards partnership within firms. In some cases employers refused to release workers for training and trade union courses.
"These issues are of the utmost importance to unions operating in the private sector and we in Mandate have had more than our fair share of difficulties even with firms in membership of IBEC [the employers organisation], where we had secured 100 per cent union organisation."
A "high level group" of union and employer representatives was examining union recognition and Mr Nulty said that Mandate would do all in its power to ensure that this group was fully briefed on the union's views in the preparation of its report to the Minister for Enterprise and Employment before the end of the year.