Talks on a possible new partnership deal will have to address a "growing gap" between low-paid private sector workers and other employees, a union leader warned yesterday.
Research commissioned by Mandate, the Republic's third-largest union, indicates that the pay rates of low-paid workers in the private sector are falling behind those of other workers, including lower-paid staff in the public sector.
The research was carried out before the Ictu biennial conference in Belfast, which continues until tomorrow.
Mandate general secretary John Douglas, who is attending the conference, said future trade union strategy on pay would have to address the widening gap the research identified.
Among the findings were that the pay of local authority labourers had risen by 57.5 per cent since 2000, compared to 37.1 per cent for Tesco workers and 33.3 per cent for staff at Penney's.
"The growth in pay rates for lower-paid workers in the Civil Service was also higher than for retail workers, with clerical officers and service attendants gaining increases of 43.5 per cent and cleaners achieving rises of 43.7 per cent."
Mr Douglas said that while Ireland was the 12th most prosperous state in the world, a growing number of its workforce was living below the poverty line.
A key question facing social partnership now, he said, was whether an economy which tolerated lower increases for those already on low incomes was "socially acceptable".
Benchmarking had brought significant increases to lower-paid public sector workers and Mandate applauded this achievement.
"However, we need to look at ways through which lower paid workers in the private sector can also receive significant rises to narrow the gap with those at the top of the income ladder. This is a significant challenge for the trade union movement."
Mr Douglas said the growing pay gap was part of the reason Mandate members had become "extremely sceptical" about the social partnership process.
"Social partnership is a means not an end and our members judge the process on the extent to which it delivers for them. Unfortunately, our experience has been that it hasn't done so sufficiently. . . It's no surprise then that Mandate members have voted by almost 90 per cent to reject the last two agreements."
