THE PRESIDENT of the country's largest public service union has accused employers of "new standards of double standards" in urging wage restraint for workers while pay at the top is soaring.
At the opening of Impact's biennial delegate conference in Kilkenny last night, Finbarr O'Driscoll called on business leaders to show "some glimmer of understanding of the rage and frustration felt by ordinary people when top earners award themselves huge pay increases while telling the little people to tighten their belts".
He said that in the current national pay talks, unions were seeking increases that matched the rate of inflation simply to maintain living standards.
"We need to see some evidence that employers still see partnership as a two-way street, where all the parties make gains and sacrifices, but in recent months we have witnessed emboldened employers who are determined to row back on the rights and living standards that we have won for working people."
Mr O'Driscoll criticised profitable banks for increasing interest rates which left "hard-working young couple to pay for the mess in the international money markets" and retailers who hiked up prices for years on the basis of the high cost of sterling but who refused to reduce them when the value of that currency fell.
However, he specifically attacked employers who sought lower-than-inflation pay increases while awarding themselves big rises on top of already huge salaries.
"These are the same employers who, without embarrassment, set out to reduce pension provision for private and public service staff alike.
"Needless to say," he added, "most of them enjoy expensive pension cushions, even as they preach to ordinary workers who just want a bit of security in their old age. The greed behind these double standards is also fuelling a sustained and virulent onslaught against trade unions."
Mr O'Driscoll said that most of the lectures on partnership and performance given to trade unions in the run-up to the national pay talks came from those who had done exceptionally well out of boardroom pay increases or the report of the review body on top-level pay in the public sector.
"I can marvel at their selective indignation, but I won't take the lectures. Not after 21 years of social partnership, when we have delivered wage restraint, industrial peace and, as the OECD just reported, a high quality and cost-effective public service that has contributed strongly to Ireland's economic competitiveness."