A BLANKET pay freeze until 2013, as suggested by employers’ group Ibec, is a “recipe for conflict”, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said yesterday.
Eamon Devoy of congress’s private sector committee rejected Ibec’s call not to entertain any claims for pay rises in 2011 or 2012 on the basis that wage levels remain significantly out of line with many of the country’s key trading partners.
He said: “A unilateral call for a pay freeze by Ibec is a recipe for conflict. Far from helping our economic recovery it will undermine it further.”
The committee secretary said the Government should be generating jobs and demand in the economy, not suppressing them further.
“The last thing we need is for people to be told by Ibec or the Government that further cuts are on the way.
“The people who created the present crisis have already succeeded in deflating the economy to the point where the cure may succeed in killing the patient. It is time we called a halt to this self-destructive exercise,” Mr Devoy said.
The private committee of congress represents 400,000 workers in manufacturing and services, including engineering, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food and drinks, banking and financial services, retail and aviation.
Earlier congress president Jack O’Connor also rejected Ibec’s proposal by saying a “much more subtle” approach was required.
Mr O’Connor said that at a time when the Government was continuing to take an enormous amount out of the economy a pay freeze would just further depress consumption.
“Ibec’s call for a pay freeze to 2013 is completely counterproductive because, apart from anything else, it fuels the fear and apprehension which is preventing people from spending.
He also described Ibec’s call for the freeze as both “opportunistic and irresponsible”.
