SIPTU leaders cancel vote on partnership talks

SIPTU leaders at the union’s biennial conference in Cork last night cancelled a crucial vote on whether to enter negotiations on a new social partnership deal, and are now set to make participation in talks conditional on Government guarantees on job displacement and employment rights.

In a meeting of the union's National Executive Council yesterday, SIPTU's leadership decided to withdraw a motion in favour of entering partnership talks, and instead ask delegates to sanction an emergency motion demanding that progress on employment rights be guaranteed before talks begin.

The new motion, which looks likely to be passed tomorrow, is designed to ease pressure within SIPTU on the issue of entering a new partnership deal and in turn put additional pressure on the Government.

The decision came after SIPTU president Jack O'Connor yesterday questioned the capability of Social Partnership to curb labour exploitation in advance of Thursday's vote.

With the abuse of migrant workers and the continued fallout from the Irish Ferries crisis dominating the opening day of SIPTU's biennial conference, Mr O'Connor said he could not be confident that a new partnership agreement could yield tangible measures to prevent job displacement.

"There is a certain logic in the view that if we cannot prevent displacement within an agreement it is unlikely we will succeed outside.

"But a line has to be drawn somewhere," he told delegates in his opening address.

"Right now, I cannot assure you, with any degree of confidence, that talks on a new national agreement can result in tangible measures to prevent displacement, curb exploitation or protect employment standards."

But Mr O'Connor stopped short of indicating if he believed delegates should support an executive motion due tomorrow which will decide on whether SIPTU opts in to impending negotiations on a new partnership deal.

Instead, he described a union standing "perched on the precipice of contrasting models of the future" which now had to make up its mind.

In a dedicated session on employment standards yesterday, several delegates argued that national agreements, and their commitment to industrial peace, had hampered union growth.

Des Derwin of the electronics and engineering branch said partnership had taken away SIPTU's power.

"I think we are giving our power away. I don't think this is the way to organise. What is the point being in a union if you do not have, at the end of the day, the right to strike?" he asked.

Peter Jefferies of SIPTU's Connemara branch said the union's participation in national agreements was militating against growth.

"The profile of the union is dropping because of the national agreements," he told his colleagues.

Kieran Allen of the education branch said social partnership had not delivered: "If the union movement is going to go anywhere it has to break Intel and Hewlett Packard no matter what Bertie Ahern thinks.

"If a union is not built on struggle why would people join. Partnership is eating away at our membership."

However, national organiser Noel Dowling said exiting social partnership was not the solution others represented it as.

"Vote for it or against it according as your intellect or conscience dictates but don't believe that its absence will solve our problem. We have to get out and organise We have forgotten how to do it and we have to get back and do it," he said.