Talks on a new national partnership programme enter a crucial phase today, as employers and unions intensify efforts to reach agreement on the issue of job standards.
The two sides meet this afternoon in an attempt to bridge a gap which remains as wide as it was when the talks began nearly a fortnight ago.
The main sticking point is the demand by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) for new legislation to underpin workers' pay and conditions.
Employer bodies, including Ibec and the Construction Industry Federation, are prepared to discuss measures to improve enforcement of existing employment laws.
But they say they will not countenance any measures that would increase the regulatory burden on employers or introduce "inflexibilities" into the labour market.
Department of the Taoiseach secretary general Dermot McCarthy held separate discussions with the parties this week in an attempt to identify potential common ground. Sources on both sides confirmed yesterday, however, that major obstacles to a deal remained.
It is considered essential that progress be made by early next week, if the talks on a successor to Sustaining Progress are not to run into trouble.
Ictu has made it clear that substantial progress must be made on employment standards before it negotiates on other issues, including pay rates.
It wants the Government and employers to agree on a legal framework to ensure workers are not paid less than the "going rate for the job" in the economic sector concerned.
Ibec is strongly opposed to this proposal, insisting it would introduce, in effect, a third-tier minimum wage to the labour market.
This is a reference to the fact that workers are already covered by the national minimum wage of €7.65 an hour, while those in some sectors are given additional protection through registered employment agreements.
Ictu argues that legislation is also needed to prevent employers from making people redundant in order to replace them with cheaper labour.
It also wants to stamp out the use of collective redundancy in circumstances arising from "non- bona-fide trading problems".
Other legal measures being sought by Ictu include:
- a strengthening of unfair dismissals legislation;
- unambiguous definition of what constitutes "a worker" to avoid miscategorising people as self-employed;
- "whatever legal reforms are necessary" to prevent the challenges that arose in the Gama Construction case;
- amended legislation governing employment agencies to prevent loopholes "through which employers can avoid responsibility for workers' rights and conditions".
In the talks, Ibec has disputed the claim by unions that a "race to the bottom" in employment standards is taking place. It says recent studies have confirmed that there is no evidence that jobs are being displaced.
