More than half a million workers are in line to receive a 5.5 per cent pay increase after the latest national deal was ratified yesterday by unions and employers.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) said it would also be pressing the Government to deliver on other elements of the current partnership programme, particularly its promise to provide 10,000 "affordable" houses.
The pay deal, to be paid in three phases over the remaining 18 months of Sustaining Progress, was negotiated in June.
Its ratification was delayed because of the summer holidays and to allow unions time to ballot members on the terms.
Despite much criticism of elements of the deal, it was approved yesterday by 267 votes to 110 at a special delegate conference of the ICTU at The Helix in Dublin. Some of the criticism concerned the failure of Sustaining Progress to date to deliver on the affordable housing initiative.
IBOA general secretary Mr Larry Broderick said there was a "firm commitment" in the agreement to provide 10,000 such houses, but not a brick had been laid.
This was described as a "fair criticism" by the ICTU general secretary, Mr David Begg. He said it was possible that the housing commitment would not be fulfilled, but the trade union movement would demand of the Government that it delivered on the initiative.
Social partnership, he said, had to be about more than determining wage increases, and unions had made housing a priority in the current programme.
Some private sector workers are already due the first phase increase of 1.5 per cent under the new deal, which comes into effect at different times for different employments.
Public sector workers will receive the first 1.5 per cent next June, followed by the next 1.5 per cent in December 2005 and a 2.5 per cent increase in June 2006.
Workers in all sectors earning a maximum of €351 per week or €9 per hour will receive an additional half per cent increase from the outset.
Mandate general secretary Mr John Douglas, whose union represents thousands of retail workers, said the special increase for the low paid was "too little, too late". Mandate members rejected the deal by 97 per cent to 3 per cent.
However, other union leaders, such as Mr Peter McLoone and Mr Jack O'Connor of SIPTU, pointed out that over the three years of Sustaining Progress, workers would receive pay increases ahead of inflation.
IBEC, the main employers' body, announced following the ICTU conference, that it too had endorsed the new deal.
Its general secretary, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, said the pay terms were "the very limit" of what employers could afford. "As in earlier agreements, there are provisions in Sustaining Progress for those enterprises that simply cannot afford the pay increases and this reality must be recognised if we are to protect jobs."
The social and economic value of the agreement would only be realised if industrial peace prevailed, particularly in the public sector, he said.
