ANALYSIS:While it would be premature to write off social partnership, failure to find a deal may bring change, writes
MARTIN WALL.
AFTER WEEKS of what many participants complain has been frustratingly slow progress, talks between the social partners on a national economic recovery programme are expected to come to a head next week when the Government finally begins to show its hand on what it can offer under any deal.
At this stage, while the prospects of an accord do not look good, it would be premature to write off completely a process which has proven extremely resilient in the past. After weeks of discussions, the Government is well aware of the demands and requirements of the unions, employers and other social partners. The unions are seeking a €1 billion State investment in job-protection measures as well as a new mechanism to assist private sector pension schemes facing difficulties and guarantees on jobs, income levels and retirement lump sums for public sector staff.
Employers also want job-protection measures and State supports for business. However, what all sides are waiting for now are political decisions on how far the Government can go on these issues.
Sources have suggested that the Government could seek to re-shape the manner in which it spends money on job creation and protection. It could even propose attempting to keep people in work by using money which would otherwise be spent on social welfare payments to boost the new €100 million Enterprise Stability Fund for companies in trouble, although there could be problems on competition and State-aid grounds.
On the other hand, Government sources have over the last week indicated the Cabinet could have difficulties with the unions' demands for a State protection scheme for private-sector defined benefit pension schemes which are virtually all in major difficulties. This has become an even more crucial issue for unions in the wake of the Waterford Crystal and SR Technics situations where workers face receiving little in pension payments despite a lifetime of contribution.
Government sources have signalled that there is highly unlikely to be a "traditional" social partnership deal on this occasion, but it is unclear as to what this means. Pay has not been on the table since last autumn. And if old-style social partnership is dead, what will new-style social partnership look like?
It has to be stressed that social partnership has not just been about securing pay deals. Over its 20-year history it has grown to cover the total social and economic agenda in the country, spawning a host of agencies and quangos. Social partnership has provided unions, employers and other groups with extraordinary influence over government policy. Their representatives have had access to ministers and key officials and have regularly been appointed to State boards.
Whether this whole infrastructure could survive a total collapse of the partnership process is open to question. When a previous attempt to secure an agreement broke down over the public service pension levy in early February, the Government was quick to stress that this did not mean the end of social partnership and all the indications are that it would adopt the same approach if there was a further collapse in the next week or so.
Much would presumably depend on the industrial relations climate that followed from any such breakdown and in this area the signals have been mixed. Last month Siptu's Jack O'Connor warned of a prolonged campaign of action if there was no overall deal. On Tuesday, David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said that while it was possible failure to agree a deal could lead to industrial action in some sectors, this was "not a logical or necessary projection out of the current situation". But by Wednesday the largest public sector union, Impact, maintained that strikes could flow in the health sector if there was no deal.
Senior industrial relations figures believe that if there were a wave of strikes following any collapse in talks it would cast a dark cloud over social partnership. If there is no overall agreement and the next week or so marks the end of social partnership as we have known it, it is possible that it could evolve into a looser structure. Already, employers' group Ibec which strongly supports social partnership, has sought talks with unions on a bilateral deal for the private sector if there is no overall agreement. Separately, the community and voluntary pillar will insist that work must continue on implementing high-priority goals in the social part of the existing deal.
Ibec's director general Turlough O'Sullivan has said that it wants the pay deal agreed last autumn deferred until a review in 2011. However, it has said that it would not stand in the way of any company which could pay the increases on a voluntary basis. In the absence of such a bilateral agreement between unions and private sector employers, issues such as pay would be left to be decided on a company-by-company basis, a move with undoubted implications for both the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court, which would have to deal with rows that would follow.
The Government, meanwhile, is also going to have to deal with the public sector unions both on its reform agenda and on its early retirement and career-break proposals.
Some mechanism will have to be put in place to manage both the numbers seeking to leave and how services are to be maintained if, as is generally accepted, most of the staff concerned will not be replaced.
In the Dáil on Wednesday Taoiseach Brian Cowen indicted strongly that even without a new deal "social dialogue" would continue and that some of the agencies of partnership would remain in operation. "Institutions are in place such as the National Implementation Body in industrial relations terms, the National Economic and Social Council in terms of common macroeconomic analysis and the steering committee for the Towards 2016 agreement.
All of those bodies are important means by which dialogue and an open approach between the Government and the social partners is created. That is necessary in order to ensure that everyone understands where everyone is coming from on various issues as they arise," he said
Cowen said the Government was working to see if an agreement could be reached, and that it was "not a question of everything collapsing and there being no dialogue between us". The Taoiseach maintained that he was not suggesting that there should be a different type of social partnership. The next week or so will decide whether that is what will emerge if no agreement can be reached.
Martin Wall is Industry Correspondent of The Irish Times