Excessive company profits and not pay rises have been the key driver of inflation in the Republic and contributed to an intolerable decline in real incomes, outgoing president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Kevin Callinan will tell delegates at its biennial conference in Kilkenny on Tuesday.
“At a time of very healthy profits [for many companies] and buoyant public finances, the Government is presiding over a significant fall in living standards due to rampant inflation in energy and food costs,” Mr Callinan will say in his opening address to delegates.
“Many authoritative sources — even from within the European Central Bank — have acknowledged that excessive profits are the key driver of soaring inflation rates, not wages.
“When the current inflationary problems hit, we were told initially by the powers-that-be that the spike in inflation would be temporary. When it wasn’t, then it was due to supply chain pressures and the war in Ukraine. Of course, the old chestnut of workers’ incomes being the problem is now being rolled out and we’re being warned about the risk of a wage-price inflationary spiral when what we’re actually experiencing is greed-flation. Let me be very clear, workers and their families are the victims of inflation — they are not the cause.”
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He will also say that “our movement has a responsibility to defend the living standards of ordinary people, especially at a time when we are seeing a further shift in wealth from labour to capital after more than 40 years of drift in that direction. We have seen the movement in the North take action on this issue with so many disputes taking place as workers stand up to the Tories. As president of congress, I am sending a clear message from this conference to Government and employers — North and South — that declining incomes in real terms will not be tolerated when the resources are clearly there to avoid it.”
Pay in the private and public sectors will be a key topic for discussion over the course of the three-day event which President Michael D Higgins will also address on Tuesday morning. There is also expected to be a debate on an emergency motion from the three unions at RTÉ - the NUJ, Siptu and Connect - regarding the situation at the broadcaster.
Among the other issues to be debated over the course of the conference are artificial intelligence, housing, public services, pensions and collective bargaining.
Price control
Siptu has put forward a motion calling on Government to use its powers to monitor company profits and cap prices where necessary.
Congress, meanwhile, is to launch an editorially independent “digital first media platform” intended to help the movement reach younger members and the wider general public. The intention, Mr Callinan will say, is to create content that can be carried on existing union social media channels. It will provide news and analysis on issues like “housing, health and anti-racism”.
With his term coming to an end, the Fórsa general secretary is set to be replaced as congress president by Justin McCamphill from the Belfast office of British teachers’ union, the NASUWT.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s Phil Ní Shéaghdha has been nominated for a second term as vice-president and is set to serve alongside Katie Morgan of Fórsa, while Siptu’s Joe Cunningham will again take the treasurer’s role.
