Social partners close to clinching wage agreement
However, they are faced with a tough timetable in the coming hours, with decisions on key issues left to the last minute.
The percentage pay increase that workers in the public and private sector will achieve, the duration of the new agreement and the size of any pay pause in the sectors, will not be addressed in their entirety until today. Those, to varying degrees, are the divisive issues between the employer and employee bodies.
Private sector unions and elements of the public sector are opposed to any pause in increases for their members.
However, other public sector workers will take a pay pause for up to 11 months provided they receive the same hikes over the duration of the agreement as the private sector.
The Government may seek trade-offs between increases, duration and the pay pause to accommodate both sides. It could, for example, propose greater pay increases over periods which are more acceptable to employers.
“The difficult negotiation is yet to take place and it will probably be dealt with in the closing stages,” said IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone.
However, IBEC director general Turlough O’Sullivan was more optimistic. “It is fair to say that both sides know very well what is in the other side’s mind. At the end of the day there is a desire to make an agreement. Leaving those issues to be finalised until tomorrow will not be a problem.”
One clear stumbling block still remains which threatens to derail the process — the low paid. Mr McLoone said the protection of living standards for that category remained a big priority while SIPTU president Jack O’Connor said the issue was still a deal breaker.
On a more positive note, the two sides were moving closer to a deal on the non-pay issues. On companies claiming “inability to pay” due to their economic circumstances, the sides had almost agreed a formula.
On collective bargaining, Mr McLoone said unions could not, as employers wished, “park” better union recognition in the workplace given the dilution of the 2001-2004 industrial relations legislation of 2001 and 2004 by the Ryanair Supreme Court decision.
“We also have the problem of people choosing to join unions who have difficulty getting recognition in their workplaces, whether these people will be subjected to victimisation.”
IBEC admitted it was prepared to “tweak” the existing mechanisms governing collective bargaining.
“We have a code of practice on victimisation. It has been there for a long time and we are looking to see if we can improve that but it is a reasonably good code,” said Mr O’Sullivan. He said the previous agreements had not been designed to provide statutory union recognition because “that is a problem for Ireland”.
“We were trying to reach halfway in a situation where unions wanted to be able to advance pay and conditions for their members in a way that did not prejudice the issue of recognition for employers and those arrangements achieved that. But they have not worked as well as they might have from the trade union point of view or our own point of view. We are looking at those to see if we can make them work closer to what we intended in the first place.”
Talks are set to continue today at 2pm.
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