A prominent trade union leader has told workers to be “strike-ready”, as many unions gear up for campaigns for pay increases.
Susan Fitzgerald, the head of Unite in Ireland, said employers should be aware that union members are prepared to take industrial action to secure cost-of-living pay increases.
“Where possible, cost-of-living pay increases will be secured through negotiation – but Unite members will not shy away from taking strike action where necessary,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
“Experience has taught us that the more strike-ready workers are, the more talk-ready employers are,” she added.
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The union chief was speaking in advance of the annual May Day rally organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions which takes place in Dublin on Monday. The May Day bank holiday celebrates the struggles of organised labour and working people.
“We celebrate International Workers’ Day at a time when working people are fighting back against an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
“In 2022, inflation rose by 8 per cent while wages rose by just 3.4 per cent on average, leaving workers to absorb a real pay cut of over 4.5 per cent.
She said that the profits of multinational companies were “soaring”, and that a “profiteering crisis” is “costing workers on the double, in terms of higher prices and suppressed wages”.
“The only bulwark workers have against wage-squeezing is strong collective workplace organisation,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
The warning from the Unite leader comes as public sector unions prepare to open negotiations with the Government before the summer on a new public sector pay deal to replace the existing agreement, which expires in the autumn.
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A series of union conferences since Easter has stressed that public sector workers will be seeking a round of pay rises to compensate for the rising cost of living, and other issues.
This week it is the turn of the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation, which meets for its conference in Killarney. The theme for the conference is “safe staffing” – a campaign to increase staffing in hospitals to meet the demand for patient services.
Earlier this year, the union said it wanted to see legislation that would require minimum staffing levels in hospitals and threatened to strike if the Government did not agree.
