Trade union leaders have warned the campaign against pay cuts will become political and focus on removing the Government from power.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of Ictu’s executive council in Dublin today general secretary of the Irish Bank Officials' Association Larry Broderick said the unions’ strategy “has to be at taking this Government out of power”.
Mr Broderick said he didn’t expect full scale strikes to emerge as a strategy from the meeting but rather the executive council would look at “broad details not just in the public sector but in the private sector”.
Speaking to RTÉ he said unions need to “look for a more strategic approach, focusing on local issues, non-cooperation and taking the government out of power” and he warned that January will be a “very serious winter of discontent”.
General secretary of Ictu Jack O’ Connor said trade unions had tried everything they could “by negotiation, by diplomacy” but it “doesn’t work with this government”.
He said: “We have to sit down and work out how it can be done in a way that minimises the impact on the public and maximise the effect on them.
”That will be rolled out in the new year,” he promised.
General secretary of the secondary teachers' union ASTI, John White, said unions have become “entirely alienated” from the Government and promised no cooperation with it in the future.
"We are all in the process of preparing the strongest possible campaign against these Government decisions.
“Certainly strike action is not eliminated from our consideration, every action is on the table and all actions will be considered carefully,“ he said.