Trade union leaders voted overwhelmingly yesterday to enter discussions on a new social partnership agreement. However, they warned that wage increases above the rate of inflation will have to be secured, if a deal is to be agreed .
Negotiations on a new deal - to succeed the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), which is due to run its course by the end of 2002 - are to begin next month and are likely to be the toughest since the social partnership process began in 1987.
At yesterday's special delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, called to decide whether to enter talks, speakers aired an extensive shopping list that unions will bring to the talks.
At the top of the agenda, however, was pay, and delegates insisted that the gains achieved under the PPF could not be clawed back.
Many had listened to a radio debate yesterday morning in which Mr Brendan McGinty, director of human resources with the employers' body, IBEC, had said pay increases would have to kept to low, single figures.
"In his dreams," said Mr Joe O'Toole, the ICTU president, as he concluded the conference. "There's no way we will be coming back recommending a worsening of members' conditions. That would be abrogating our responsibilities."
Mr Des Geraghty, president of SIPTU, reflected the general mood when he said unions should try to secure a deal, but must be ready for "a free-for-all" if necessary.
Social inequalities, which successive partnership deals have failed to eradicate, were also high on the agenda of delegates.
Mr David Begg, the ICTU general secretary, said unions had made a bargain with employers and the Government, involving modest pay increases and tax reductions, and it had been very successful.
But many social deficits remained, including shortfalls in healthcare, a crisis in housing, inadequate transport, the high cost of childcare and education cuts for the disadvantaged.
"We need a new deal that will make Ireland a profitable economy but a more equal society," he said.
Only one delegate, Mr John Bolger of the Amalgmated Transport and General Workers' Union, spoke against a motion mandating the ICTU to enter talks.
Centralised pay bargaining, he said, had never been part of the ATGWU's agenda, but his union would respect a democratic decision and participate in the process as it had always done.
Several speakers for unions in the public service emphasised that there could be no deal unless the Government committed itself to speedy payment of the pay rises recommended in the recent benchmarking report.
Union recognition was another prominent issue, with several speakers demanding it be given priority in the talks.
"If we took the attitude towards IBEC that they're encouraging companies to take towards the trade union movement, there would be no social partnership," said Mr Chris Hudson of the Communciations Workers' Union, to applause.
Mr Begg said Congress had received an invitation from the Government to enter the talks, but they were unlikely to begin until mid-October.
IBEC had signalled its intention to enter talks earlier this week. Like the unions, it says it will be difficult to reach agreement.
