Business Opinion: In the space of the last two weeks SIPTU, Impact, the TEEU, the CWU and a few other unions have variously threatened to cut off the power, stop the post and close the country's main airport in pursuit of what - in the overall scheme of things - are fairly trivial grievances.
During the same two-week period, these unions have been given an increase in the national minimum wage and had the latest round of public sector pay increases waved through in the usual fashion. The icing on the cake is the decision by Bord Gáis to enter into discussions with its unions to gift its staff a €100 million stake in return for their not kicking over the traces when the company tries to leave the State sector.
The minimum wage, pay increases and ESOTs are all creatures of social partnership, to which the unions are so firmly wed. But so is a commitment to industrial peace and an acceptance that companies must be allowed adjust to changing economic circumstances. Page 66 of the current agreement, Sustaining Progress sets out some "key principles" underpinning the pay deal which is at the core of the agreement.
They include the following: "It is accepted that the rapid pace of change in the business environment demands ongoing adaptation and the parties are committed to full co-operation with normal ongoing change and the need for continued adaptation and flexibility to maintain and improve competition and to increase productivity and employment." It is quite a mouthful, but one would have thought that the scope of this "principle" was broad enough to allow An Post to shut down its chronically loss making parcel distribution business - SDS - and reincorporate it into the core mail operation.
Further perusal of the document would appear to give further support to An Post. It holds that "the implementation of this agreement at enterprise or industry level will take full account of the implications for competitiveness and employment and the need for flexibility and change, compatible with modern organisation, design, efficiency and business processes".
The decision of the unions representing workers at the Dublin Airport Authority - SIPTU, TEEU and Impact - to threaten strike action over the decision of Aer Lingus to withdraw free flights for some of their members, seems to be equally at odds with the commitments given under Sustaining Progress.
It is a somewhat more complex problem to apply the "key principles" to the issue that is threatening to convulse the ESB. When the social partners sat down in 2003 to agree Sustaining Progress it is unlikely that they foresaw power cuts being threatened because the chairman and deputy chairman of the ESB fell out over who should chair meetings. But the fundamental issue - a need for a significant change at the company - is well covered by the agreement.
But it is not quite that simple. Another of the "key principles" is that the agreement "precludes strikes or other forms of industrial action by trade unions or employees or employers in respect of any matters covered by this agreement, where the employer or trade union concerned is acting in accordance with the provisions of this agreement."
One can only presume that the unions sincerely believe that the ESB, An Post and the DAA are not acting in "accordance with the provisions of this agreement". As a result all bets are off as far as they are concerned .
And that is the real problem with social partnership as it currently exists. The original partnership agreement - the Programme for National Recovery agreed in 1987 - was a fairly simple affair, with a pretty simple objective. Industrial peace and pay moderation was traded for tax reform and job creation. It was also forged in an atmosphere of economic crisis, that ensured both sides took it seriously.
Its successor agreements, culminating in Sustaining Progress, have become progressively more complex beasts, with all sorts of other items such as the provision of affordable housing attached. They have also been set against a dramatically changed economic landscape, which in many ways has removed the incentive for the participants to adhere to them.
But the political consensus persists that partnership agreements are a good thing and every few years the various actors in the social partnership drama bend over backwards to negotiate another one. The problem is that in the search for consensus on a wide range of issues the agreements have become increasingly convoluted and ambiguous as seen from the quotes above.
This would not present too much of a problem as long as the agreement is not tested or has to be enforced. But when that happens it is exposed for what it is; a pretty meaningless and unenforceable document that no one really takes seriously anymore. The way things are going, 2005 may well be the year that social partnership is exposed for the nonsense that it has become.
jmcmanus@irish-times.ie
