Last year was one of the best ever for industrial peace, with fewer disputes taking place than in any year since records began in 1923, the Labour Relations Commission said yesterday.
While the number of days lost to strikes increased last year, only 24 disputes took place, the commission said in its annual report. Even the number of days lost to disputes - 37,482, compared to 21,527 in 2002 - was among the lowest in the past decade, it pointed out.
The commission highlighted the benchmarking process as a key factor in the improved industrial relations climate in the public sector. Benchmarking, it said, had resulted in a far more substantial level of change and modernisation than achieved by any reform effort in the past.
The commission's chief executive, Mr Kieran Mulvey, said the figures in the report were a "singular tribute" to the social partnership process and the efficiency of dispute resolution institutions.
They also represented a "beacon of stability" and an opportunity for foreign companies considering investing in Ireland. The report cited increased industrial peace in the health sector in the second half of 2003 as "one of the big success stories of the year".
Overall this sector accounted for 42 per cent of the total days lost, the vast majority of them in the early part of the year.
"The 10-week dispute by public health doctors had a major impact on these figures," the report said. However, with 50 per cent of the benchmarking pay increases due on January 1st, 2004, there had been a significant improvement in the second part of the year.
Payment of benchmarking was conditional on public servants delivering modernisation and industrial peace, in line with terms set out in the Sustaining Progress partnership deal.
"CSO data showed that no public service disputes were recorded in the third quarter of 2003," the report said.
"The impact of the Sustaining Progress modernisation criteria was also clearly demonstrated when the teaching union ASTI dropped its 'non-co-operation' policy with the new junior science syllabus, following a teachers' arbitration ruling that such action would preclude payment of the next phase of benchmarking," the report said.
