Motor trade agrees pay rise despite talks collapse

THE first successful pay claim since Saturday’s social-partnership collapse will see 5,000 workers in the motor trade receiving a 3% pay increase.

SIPTU secured the increase to cover the eight months from May 1 to the end of the year.

The agreement also provides for full implementation of a 20% productivity bonus scheme that was agreed under the Towards 2016 social partnership agreement, but which has not yet been universally implemented.

Union leaders say this works out at about 4.5% on an annual basis — about the same as the current rate of inflation.

The decision by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) to honour the union claim comes despite employers’ group IBEC urging its members not to take any action on pay claims in advance of new talks on a national deal, which the Government and employers claim will take place at the end of the month.

The unions are adamant such talks would have to be on an agenda far removed from the talks that collapsed on Saturday and would involve much improved terms from employers.

According to SIPTU, the increase in the motor industry brings basic pay to €30,498.16 a year. The productivity based bonus is worth up to €110 a week and is to be negotiated locally.

SIPTU national industrial secretary Gerry McCormack said: “The figures were based on an expectation of what would come out of any new national pay deal. It involves no pay pause and it allows us to negotiate for further increases within five months.

“The fact that a major group of employers such as SIMI was prepared to agree such terms suggests that the IBEC agenda in the talks was driven by a hard line minority determined to use adverse economic conditions to put the boot into the most vulnerable sectors of the workforce.”

The union’s general president Jack O’Connor said the SIMI agreement showed that local bargaining is already beginning to work. “Local SIPTU negotiating committees will be making realistic assessments of what is possible in each company,” he said. Mr O’Connor said the deal also showed terms proposed by IBEC in the pay talks — a pay pause for six months followed by two rises of 2.5% — were unrealistic.

Meanwhile, the IBOA finance union has claimed a victory in attempts to secure collective agreement rights for Irish workers after the Labour Court issued a recommendation that Electronic Data Systems (EDS) should allow the IBOA to represent all its staff.

According to the union, the court heard a number of employees at EDS were refused IBOA representation even though the union had already been recognised by management to represent other staff transferred over to it from Ulster Bank.