A call for wage restraint by Minister for Finance Brian Cowen was rejected yesterday as "preposterous" by a union representing workers in the finance sector. Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent, reports.
The Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) said it was not acceptable that workers should be asked to tighten their belts at a time when business was reporting record profits.
Mr Cowen had said the parties to the current national talks should show moderation after inflation reached a three-year high of 3.8 per cent this week. He said wage rises should not be agreed that would undermine competitiveness.
IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick, however, said his union would be seeking a pay increase for its members of at least 10 per cent over two years.
"With inflation at 3.8 per cent and interest rates forecast to rise again next month, it is preposterous for the Minister and employers to be preaching wage restraint when inflation is eating up the minimal increases that workers earn," he said.
Mr Broderick also reiterated the IBOA's demand that any new pay deal must include a local bargaining clause, allowing workers in highly profitable sectors to negotiate additional increases.
The employers' body, Ibec, is strongly opposed to this demand, arguing that unions can have a national pay or local bargaining, but to have both would be "the worst of both worlds".
Mr Broderick said it was clear that a "one size fits all" approach to national agreements no longer worked. "Recent research has backed the IBOA's view that the pay of staff in the private sector has fallen way behind that of colleagues in the public service," he said. "A national wage agreement that does not address this anomaly is not worth the paper it is written on."
It would be "nonsensical", he claimed, not to have a local bargaining clause in a new agreement, "particularly in light of the fact that there is an 'inability to pay' clause for employers."
A local bargaining clause is also a priority demand of the ATGWU, one of the State's largest private sector unions.
Regional secretary of the union, Michael O'Reilly, said the ATGWU's other key demands were for a basic 5 per cent pay increase linked to economic growth, and an additional flat rate payment of about €20 a week for the low-paid.
An enhanced pay deal was necessary, he said, if consumer spending was to be maintained. "We can, and should, pay ourselves more. It will make for a better society and a better business environment."
In a separate development yesterday, Arts Council director Mary Cloake called on the social partners to ensure the role of the arts is recognised in any new agreement. Speaking at a conference in Listowel, Co Kerry, she said the arts had featured in the first partnership agreement in 1987, but since then had not had "the look-in they deserve".
"If we are truly to have a decent society with a vibrant economy the arts have a role to play in these national agreements," she said. "As a country that is still in transition, the arts can help us to identify ourselves and what we stand for as a society. The arts can help not just to make a vibrant economy more confident, but can help the sick, the unemployed and marginalised groups to be part of a decent society."