The Government tonight denied that a bailout for the crippled economy will see it forced into imposing even tougher cuts in public spending.

THE executive of the country’s second largest construction union has unanimously rejected a recommendation by the Labour Court that the minimum wage in the industry be dropped by 7.5%.

The strike involving staff at Otis Lifts has ended.

A FURTHER three unions have rejected the Croke Park deal on public service pay and reform, including the organisation representing 40,000 of the country’s nurses.

THE country’s 10,500 electricians look set to go on strike once again after one of its bodies rejected a 4.9% pay increase.

TWO of the country’s leading food and drinks companies are facing disruptive strike action by their staff within days.

Thousands of electricians are to return to work across the country this morning following the suspension of their strike action.

More than 10,000 electricians are beginning a second day of strike action today as part of a bitter pay dispute with employers.

More than 10,000 electricians across the country look set to proceed with strike action from next Monday as part of a pay dispute with their employers.

EIGHT of the country’s largest trade unions have voted overwhelmingly in favour of accepting the new national wage agreement.

Two leading trade unions have announced that their members have voted to support the new national pay deal.

THE Health Service Executive and the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union’s (TEEU) continuing debate over worker roles in hospitals in the south of the country remained as polarised as ever last night as, in the latest twist, claims from the union that workers were locked out of work were flatly denied by the HSE.

THE threat of further cancelled operations at Kerry General Hospital was lifted last night after the hospital said emergency cover was restored by members of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU).

ELECTRICAL supplies could be severely affected by as early as this afternoon after the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) yesterday served strike notice with immediate effect on one of the ESB’s largest plants.

Two hundred Polish workers at Moneypoint power station, who claim they haven't been paid since the beginning of September, are to ballot for industrial action this evening.

WORKERS at a Kilkenny-based mining company began industrial action last night over claims the company has still not instituted pay increases due since July 2006.

Around 25 maintenance workers have begun strike action at Dublin Port this morning following the breakdown of talks last night aimed at averting the stoppage.

The Labour Relations Commission is due to oversee talks today aimed at averting possible strike action at Dublin Port.

Five workers at Dublin Port have apparently been suspended for refusing to man vessels during the current storms.

FORMER Greencore workers have asked Cork county councillors to block any attempts by their ex-employer to redevelop the 400-acre site at Mallow — until they get their redundancy entitlements.

The country's largest craft union has proposed what it says is a "radical" solution to the country's pension problem.

THE National Implementation Body is expected to make a statement on the long-running battle over redundancy pay for Greencore workers when it meets again tomorrow afternoon.

One hundred and twenty workers at the Waterford Stanley plant have been put on protective notice due to a dispute over the planned relocation of the factory.

MORE than 120 manufacturing workers at one of Waterford’s longest-established manufacturing plants have been told they will be issued with protective notice on Monday unless they relocate to a new plant.

STRIKE action at Moneypoint power station was averted at the last minute last night as Polish workers who had been sacked and told to return home were taken on by the project’s main contractor.

The system for checking labour laws in Ireland needs to be changed, it emerged today.

A Polish-owned company involved in the refurbishment of the Moneypoint power plant in Co Clare has denied union claims that it is exploiting its workers.

A Polish company which was paying its workers below the minimum wage on the ESB Moneypoint power station project has agreed to compensate them, it emerged tonight.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union has refused to back the strike action being taken by ATGWU technicians at ESB.

A THREATENED strike by electricity workers has been postponed for 24 hours, in the hope that last ditch talks on Monday will resolve a dispute between ESB management and the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU).

Talks are due to take place today in an effort to avert threatened strike action at the Rye Valley Foods plant in Carrickmacross.

Companies which exploit migrant workers by squeezing out of them long hours and low pay should be named and shamed, a trade union official claimed today.

Members of two of Ireland's biggest unions can access a range of new benefits from group schemes today.

Shop stewards from the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) have reportedly threatened to call for strike action if the ESB tries to get staff to part fund a €511m deficit in the company's pension fund.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union has criticised the Government’s demand that trade unions respond within two weeks to the business plan for the break-up of Aer Rianta.

AN overwhelming majority of the journalists working for the Irish Examiner and Evening Echo have voted in favour of industrial action in pursuit of a pay claim.

I WAS suffering under the delusion, probably like most other people in the private sector, that the secretive benchmarking deal for workers in the public sector was supposed to result in productivity and improved services.

Shop stewards from the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union have called for an emergency meeting of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions to organise a campaign of protest against bin charges in the city and the jailing of anti-bin tax campaigners.

The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union and the employers' body IBEC are due to launch a training scheme today aimed at improving the skills of 2,000 Irish craft workers.

Industrial stoppages in sectors represented by the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union are likely next week following the jailing of Deputy Joe Higgins and Councillor Claire Daly in the conflict over bin charges.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has ratified the Sustaining Progress deal by 195 votes to 147.

Two of the country's largest trade unions are to announce the formation of a strategic alliance later today.

The executive committee of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union has unanimously recommended that it members reject the social partnership deal drawn up during intensive talks in recent weeks.

THERE were renewed fears of a wages free-for-all last night as unions lodged individual pay claims well in excess of the rate of inflation.