THE factory floor worker who took 42 per cent of the vote in the SIPTU presidential election said yesterday the union leadership could not ignore the implications of the result.
Ms Carolann Duggan (36), a £13,000 a year assembly line worker in a multinational plant in Waterford, shocked observers by taking 37,940 votes in the election which was won early yesterday by Mr Jimmy Somers.
Mr Somers, the only other candidate in the race and vice president of the union since 1994, received a vote of 51,651. He says delivery on the full terms of Partnership 2000 will be the "key priority" of his presidency.
It was her opposition to Partnership 2000 which prompted Ms Duggan six weeks ago to become the first factory worker to stand for the presidency of the State's largest union.
Most of her six week campaign was spent on the assembly line at the Bausch and Lomb factory where she works, making contact lenses. She said yesterday she took just four days off to conduct her campaign.
"The company allowed me to take some time off; I have to work a couple of hours on Saturdays to make up for it.
She received no financial assistance from the union for her campaign, yet achieved a vote which was almost identical to the 43 per cent of SIPTU members who recently said "no" to Partnership 2000.
Ms Duggan claimed yesterday the union leadership had ignored the implications of that vote, but it could not afford to do so again. "I think they're shook up and they will now have to listen to what's going on on the factory floors, and to know what it's like to work in a factory and live on eight, nine and ten thousand pounds a year."
She said Partnership 2000 had failed to deliver adequate pay increases, union recognition or a minimum wage. "The economy is booming, the bosses are making a mint, the banks are making millions. Workers have created that wealth and we're getting nothing."
She also claimed union leaders were losing touch with members. "I believe that workers should control the unions, and I believe that at the moment they don't control them."
Ms Duggan, who is active in the Socialist Workers' Party in Waterford, had said she would accept only an "average industrial wage" if elected to the £74,000 a year SIPTU post. The rest would have gone into a strike fund.
She is now considering whether to challenge for the vice presidency of SIPTU, which fell vacant yesterday on Mr Somers's accession to the leadership. He takes over from Mr Edmund Browne who has retired as president.
Mr Somers, who will serve a three year term taking him up to his 60th birthday, said he was seeking immediate action on the National Centre for Partnership, as agreed in Partnership 2000, as well as real progress on trade union recognition.
Yesterday he laid he would be heading up a series of tightly focused campaigns to maximise the full benefits of Partnership 2000 for the union's membership in both the pay and non pay areas.
He said the three year deal involved a minimum pay increase of 9.25 per cent, and the union would insist on full negotiations on any changes in work practices or productivity systems.
