PRIVATE SECTOR unions are to seek flat-rate increases of about €30 per week for more than a million workers earning less than the average industrial wage of €38,000. MARTIN WALL, Industry Correspondent reports
The unions yesterday also agreed that for workers above this threshold they would look for basic increases that matched inflation - about 5 per cent - while additional rises would be sought in profitable companies.
The details were set out in guidelines drawn up by the private sector committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) for unions lodging wage claims with individual employers in the aftermath of the collapse of talks on a new national pay deal last weekend.
Jack O'Connor, president of Siptu, the country's largest union, said unions were not planning for some kind of "phoney war" designed to bring about some result in September. Unions were planning for a long campaign across the private sector. There was a view developing in the private sector unions that, while they were not opposed to engaging, they had to be "prepared for the reality that 21 years of social partnership is over".
Chairman of the Ictu committee Jerry Shanahan, of the Unite union, said the question of whether the Government issued an invitation to the parties for further talks on a national pay deal was "a moot point at this stage".
"There would not be any point in bringing us back on the basis of where we finished on the last day. Something would have to change." Mr Shanahan said that for many thousands of workers, their pay deals had either expired or would run out over the coming weeks and months and they expected their unions to lodge pay claims on their behalf in the face of rising prices.
The trade union movement was embarking on a new phase and after more than 20 years of social partnership, the process had collapsed and had been given the last rites last weekend by the proposals put forward by employers for a new deal.
Mr Shanahan said that the Government had contributed to the breakdown of the talks as it had not brought forward measures sought by the unions in relation to collective bargaining rights, agency workers and pensions.
"If they had made substantial proposals in those areas, it would have coloured the thinking of unions on the pay side."
He said according to recent figures produced by the Revenue Commissioners, there were about 1.4 million workers earning less than the average industrial wage of €38,000. While a significant number of these could be "atypical" - working on a part-time basis, for example - about a million could be in full-time posts.
The unions would be seeking increases of about €30 per week for these workers in local bargaining with employers.
The Government has signalled that it will be contacting the unions and employers in the near future with a view to holding further talks on a national pay deal at the end of the month or in September.
Employers' group Ibec also believes a deal can still be reached in further negotiations. It has effectively advised its member companies to acknowledge pay claims made by unions in the days and weeks ahead but not to act on them until the new talks, to be convened by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, which are expected to take place in a few weeks.
However, unions have warned of possible industrial action if employers sought to frustrate pay claims made under existing procedures in companies.
Ibec has warned that many firms simply could not afford increases in the current economic climate. In its final offer at the talks last weekend, it proposed a pay pause of six months (12 months in the construction sector) followed by a 5 per cent increase in two phases over 15 months. Employers also wanted changes to the current "inability to pay" clause in national agreements.
Unions said this effectively amounted to an annual increase of 2.8 per cent and rejected the Ibec proposals as unacceptable.