Republican News · Thursday 4 April 2002

Unions and employers begin "ritual dance"

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

What do Charlie McCreevy, the Central Bank, employers' leader Turlough O'Sullivan and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder have in common this week? Well, all four are concerned about workers' wages, and as Schroder sums it up, "the tender bud of economic growth".

Schroder was intervening in a growing dispute between Germany's employers and unions over a new national wage agreement. Employers have offered a 2% pay rise while unions want 6.5%.

The question of how much money is on the table from employers and government is not even up for discussion yet in the 26-County debate. Here the argument is about whether we need a collective wage agreement or not. Employers and government are openly questioning whether after 15 years and five partnership agreements it is time to call it a day on social partnership.

"You can stay too long with any particular approach," said Finance minister Charlie McCreevy last weekend, adding "that's the kind of comment that gets me into trouble".

McCreevy need not worry. He is not alone. Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) director general Turlough O'Sullivan told journalists that "I agreed with every word of it... It was extraordinarily timely".

The position of McCreevy and IBEC was bolstered by the Central Bank. Its spring bulletin, while forecasting economic growth for 2002, warns also of "wage inflation". Strangely enough, it is admitted later in the bank's press release accompanying the bulletin that the inflation will rise because of VAT increases in 2002 and the move from relatively low energy prices in 2001 to substantially higher ones this year. Both of these important factors have nothing to with wages. But let's not let that get in the way of bashing workers.

O'Sullivan claims that if there is another wage agreement it has to be one that is not "three times more expensive than what has been done in the UK and the rest of Europe".

Maybe Turlough didn't have time to read the report on wage earnings in Europe released by the Federation of European Employers in February. It showed that in the EU only Greece and Portugal have lower wages than the 26 Counties, who are ranked 14th with Britain having the fifth highest earnings in Europe.

Maybe O'Sullivan wants us to lower the average entry rate of Irish service sector workers from €5.97 an hour to the Moldovan and Russian rate of €0.13 an hour. Then maybe IBEC would think we had a competitive economy here.

McCreevy and O'Sullivan are engaged in the now familiar cycle of pre-negotiation hype that employers begin towards the end of every partnership agreement and that unions let themselves be sucked into.

Mick O'Reilly, the currently suspended AT&GWU regional secretary and a most vocal critic of partnership, described the ongoing clash as a "ritual dance". Partnership was "almost irrelevant", according to O'Reilly, as thousands of workers are not covered by the agreement. "The big issue", he said was that, "there was so little organization on the ground in the new companies". O'Reilly also said that "unions should take courage and not approach the future in a nervous fashion".

For now SIPTU how been pushing the pro-partnership approach. Even though vice president Jack O'Connor said last week that, "Workers were never regarded as partners by employers".

O'Connor's analysis also highlighted that the income flowing to holders of wealth has increased to nearly half of national revenue in the state and only 3% of partnership settlements involved some form of profit sharing.

Maybe the trade union movement should sit out this dance and spend the months between now and any negotiations considering just who gained the most from 15 years of social partnership.