ICTU calls for €1bn job creation and protection plan with “social dividend’
Trade union sources last night admitted there had been no discernible progress on the two key concessions unions require from Government before they will sign up to a plan.
Those two issues are a pension protection fund and longer protection against house repossession.
IBEC, apparently sensing the impending collapse of talks, has invited ICTU to discuss a bilateral agreement on last September’s pay agreement.
What unions are seeking in the absence of a partnership-agreed recovery plan, is for all the machinery of the state to be “harnessed to the goal of tackling the unemployment crisis” under its €1bn proposals.
ICTU assistant general secretary Sally Anne Kinahan said that with unemployment doubling in the last year, inaction was no longer an option.
The plan which it has formulated is based closely on the ideals of the 10-point plan which it has proposed to the Government and other social partners.
Among the initiatives are measures to ensure redundancy becomes a last resort and to ensure people are guaranteed access to training.
It would also see the creation of a Social Innovation Fund which would pay for social needs such as childcare, elder care, community development and allowing unemployed people to put their skills to work.
The plan also envisages changes to existing employment and redundancy law, tax law, and the social welfare code to remove barriers to work and training. It also envisages making the education system more directly attuned to the jobs crisis.
Much like social partnership, it would be driven by an oversight group at national level comprised of unions, business and government representatives.
Meanwhile, in a speech in Galway last night, SIPTU president Jack O’Connor said the Government must embrace the notion of a “social dividend’ in order to aid the recovery of the nation’s finances and to help offer some support to the ailing pension system. He also reiterated his call for the nationalisation of the banks.
