SIPTU CONFERENCE:SIPTU PRESIDENT Jack O'Connor has said industrial action and strikes forecast for the weeks ahead will not be against the pension levy or other Government cutbacks but rather aimed at realising the terms of the national agreement reached a year ago.
In an assessment of industrial relations strategy delivered at the union’s biennial delegate conference in Tralee yesterday, Mr O’Connor said Siptu would not be engaging in industrial action on levies or other Government measures.
“That would take us into the realms of political strikes which are not provided for in the immunities that are set out in the [industrial relations] legislation,” he said. The Siptu leader said there was no need to walk into a cul-de-sac “which is where that would take us”.
The conference yesterday passed a number of motions backing industrial action in certain circumstances.
The national agreement reached in September 2008 provided for increases of up to 6.5 per cent phased over 21 months.
However, the Government has frozen such rises for more than 300,000 staff in the public sector. In the private sector, while some employers have paid some of the increases, many have not.
The employers’ group Ibec last weekend said wage rises were unrealistic between now and 2011.
Last week Siptu lodged a claim for the first 3.5 per cent increase under the agreement on behalf of 34,000 staff in the health service.
Mr O’Connor told delegates the industrial campaigns on which it would be embarking would be aimed at realising the terms of the national agreement reached last year or of negotiating alternative satisfactory arrangements.
“Personally I do not believe that we will achieve success in that campaign unless we actually engage in industrial action itself and engage in that industrial action in advance of the budget because I do not believe that they believe it until they actually see. That is what is coming across now.”
He said the new campaign would not be focused on any particular sector.
“That campaign will be open to workers across the economy who are members of our union to participate in. It will be extended to workers who were the subject of pay cuts, where pay cuts have been inflicted, where they have been threatened, where they have been signalled and if there are workers who have not yet obtained the terms or where their employer is not in compliance with the terms of the agreement negotiated last year to participate as well.
“This will not be a campaign about one sector of the workforce. This will be about workers and employers across our economy, let there be no mistake about that.”
Mr O’Connor said Siptu’s planned industrial strategy would run in parallel with the campaign for a fairer way of tackling the economic crisis which is being launched by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu).
“The congress campaign will be a campaign of protest and public actions of various kinds. It will not be industrial action or strike action. It will involve the promotion of the demands for a fairer and better way as outlined in the 10-point plan that will require further developments in the light of what has unfolded over the last six months,” he said.
Ictu is to organise a series of demonstrations on November 6th as part of its new campaign.
Mr O’Connor again indicated it was a mistake for the trade unions to go back into talks with the Government on an economic recovery deal after the deadline some had set for the end of April had expired.
He also appeared sceptical of the prospect of concluding a deal on economic recovery with the Government in any forthcoming talks. “Quite frankly I very much doubt it, but they got their chance and they blew it, that is the reality of it,” he said.
