SIPTU issues threat to abandon social partnership agreement

SIPTU yesterday said it will abandon social partnership if the process continues to focus on maintaining competitiveness while failing to enhance fairness at work and quality of life in society.

Speaking at its biennial delegate conference in Tralee, union president Jack O’Connor said the objectives of the social partners appeared to be increasingly divergent these days and he said his union was already having to deliberate on how it would respond to any request for talks on a new social partnership agreement.

Mr O’Connor said the union had already paid a high price for carrying the burden of supporting social partnership and it would no longer pay that price if material gains were not forthcoming for workers. He said there was a number of areas where social partnership was failing to provide workers with the conditions it should.