The country’s largest craft union has said it will resist any attempt by the Government to cut social welfare payments or pay rates.
Responding to the ‘Bord Snip Nua’ recommendations published last week, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) said increases secured by its members over the past decade were “hard-earned”.
General secretary Owen Wills said: “During the boom years workers exercised a degree of moderation and discipline that was not, unfortunately, matched by bankers, speculators or developers.
“Now we want to give fair warning to the Government that we not intend meekly accepting the cuts proposed by a group of consultants who were themselves cheerleaders for the boom.”
Mr Wills said the union was also “determined” to protect social welfare rates.
“[Business organisations] Ibec, the Construction Industry Federation and Isme are queuing up to support cutbacks proposed in An Bord Snip and endorsing its claim that a five per cent cut in rates is justified by deflation of up to 4.7 per cent.
“But this deflation rate includes factors such as interest payments on mortgages, which do not affect most people on social welfare. When you exclude these items, the real drop in prices over the past year is less than two per cent,” Mr Wills added.
He said proposals to “slash” jobseeker’s benefit for young workers were also unfair, especially in the construction sector, where “huge revenue was raised by the state in terms of income tax and PRSI contributions from workers”.
Mr Wills criticised what he said was “flawed thinking” in relation to cutbacks in education and training at a time when urgent investment in creating new skills was needed.
“Any Government claiming it is promoting a knowledge economy which opts for such an approach is going to bring its credibility into serious doubt where workers are concerned. “We are putting the Government on notice that if it opts to follow the advice of An Bord Snip Nua and squeeze workers and the unemployed even harder, it will have a fight on its hands.”
The union claims 45,000 members.
The lead author of the so-called ‘Bord Snip’ report, economist Colm McCarthy, defended its recommendations last week.
Mr McCarthy said levels of spending on social welfare must be addressed and that there was a “clear case” for a 5 per cent cut because of falling prices and pay cuts. This would save €850 million a year, he said.
Mr McCarthy said the current situation, where the Government was borrowing nearly €400 million per week, could not be allowed to continue.