THE TRADE union Mandate, which represents about 44,000 staff in the retail and bar sector, is to return to the national pay talks today, two years after withdrawing from social partnership.
Mandate pulled out of the process in 2006 because it believed that national deals had failed to deliver for low-paid workers in the private sector. In the interim, the union has negotiated locally with employers and has said it secured a number of deals which gave workers increases over and above those in the national agreement.
Mandate general secretary John Douglas yesterday said that while the union would take part in talks today on a new pay deal, it would “reserve its position and re-evaluate its participation at any time in the future”.
He said there still remained a huge degree of scepticism as to the resolve of the process and the negotiators to deliver a better deal for lower-paid workers.
The national pay talks resume today with a presentation on the economy by the Department of Finance.
Meanwhile, a business organisation is expected to tell an Oireachtas committee today that changes being sought by trade unions in legislation governing temporary workers supplied through employment agencies is “unnecessary and unfounded”.
Seán Murphy, director of policy at Chambers Ireland, will tell the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment that additional bureaucratic requirements in this area would almost certainly result in job losses and reduced availability for those seeking temporary employment, and ultimately Irish competitiveness.