It's not just public sector workers who are discontented. The success of militant tactics by groups such as the Garda and nurses in securing significant additional pay increases has encouraged some private sector trade unionists to claim there is a form of "apartheid" operating in national agreements.
They claim the strength of the public sector unions is allowing them to benefit disproportionately from the current economic boom. Recent data on wage trends within the EU from the European Foundation on Living and Working Conditions lends some credence to this. It suggests the share of GDP going in wages, salaries and pensions is falling throughout the EU, but nowhere faster than in Ireland.
Between 1991 and 1997, the share of the national cake obtained by Irish workers has fallen by an average of 7.5 per cent a year. The EU average is 3.2 per cent a year. Only in France, Spain and Denmark has the workers' share of GDP fallen at comparable rates to Ireland. The figures are 5.1 per cent per year for France, 5.6 per cent for Spain and 4.9 per cent for Denmark.
The fall in the share of national income going to wage and salary earners across the EU is a long term phenomenon. Workers in other EU states have been gradually adjusting to weak growth, chronic unemployment, less influence for trade unions at the negotiating table and more modest expectations.
In Ireland we had long been conditioned to low growth and modest pay rises. But not any more. According to IBEC, average industrial earnings rose by 6.8 per cent to the end of June 1998. However CSO figures show that industrial output rose by 14.2 per cent over the same period.
Department of Finance figures show the public service pay and pensions bill rose by 9 per cent in 1998. Assuming Partnership 2000 can contain workers' expectations until March 2000 in the case of private sector workers and September in the public sector, any successor will have to be far more flexible on the pay front.