Noel Dowling, a national industrial secretary in Ireland's largest trade union, the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), has called for workers to engage in a form of national industrial action if employers refuse to negotiate a new centralised pay agreement later in 2002. Writing exclusively in the Dublin-based weekly, /Industrial Relations News/ (IRN) on 30 May 2002, Mr Dowling said that such a strategy could involve 'progressive, incremental industrial action' in the form of two-hour, half-day, one-day or even week-long stoppages.
In May 2002, a leading official in Ireland's largest trade union, SIPTU, called for workers to engage in a form of national industrial action if employers refuse to negotiate a new centralised pay agreement later in the year.
Noel Dowling, a national industrial secretary in Ireland's largest trade union, the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), has called for workers to engage in a form of national industrial action if employers refuse to negotiate a new centralised pay agreement later in 2002. Writing exclusively in the Dublin-based weekly, Industrial Relations News (IRN) on 30 May 2002, Mr Dowling said that such a strategy could involve 'progressive, incremental industrial action' in the form of two-hour, half-day, one-day or even week-long stoppages.
Mr Dowling was responding to criticism (IE0204202N) by the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) of trade union behaviour under the current three-year agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) (IE0003149F), which is in its final year. Two of SIPTU's leading officers, general secretary Des Geraghty and vice-president Jack O'Connor, were made aware of the contents of Mr Dowling's article before it was published.
Mr Dowling argues that during the 1980s, free collective bargaining in Ireland resulted in absolute and relative pay differences between lower and higher paid workers. He believes that if there is a return to 'free for all' pay bargaining, the same could happen again, with the added problem of 'interminable delays' in adjusting the national minimum wage (IE0107170F): 'The government could quite legitimately argue that in the absence of nationally agreed wage increases it had no clear standard against which to establish the minimum wage.'
The 'alternative scenario' is for the unions to use their collective strength to achieve an agreed central settlement, which, Mr Dowling says, is the preferred method of European trade unions: 'It seems illogical to me that when employers acting collectively at national level refuse to negotiate, the trade union response is to revert to our smallest, perhaps weakest bargaining units.' Such a strategy, 'properly organised and coordinated, would give added meaning and purpose to the trade union centre, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU)', he asserts.
Since 1987, the social partners – government, employers and trade unions - have negotiated five successive three-year programmes, all of which have included centralised pay agreements.
Il-Eurofound jirrakkomanda li din il-pubblikazzjoni tiġi kkwotata kif ġej.
Eurofound (2002), Key union official raises prospect of national strike, article.
