The "never-ending pressure of foreign competition on the labour markets of developed countries will continue to radicalise organised labour in Europe against globalisation", according to the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Dave Begg.
He told its annual women's committee conference in Belfast at the weekend the radicalising effects of globalisation were already clear in the UK, where "the leadership of six of the main trade unions have moved decidedly leftward" and relations between trade unions and new Labour had moved from "very warm" to "distinctly chilly".
In Ireland the unions were also reviewing the situation in the light of talks on a successor to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, he said.
Responding to comments by the director general of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, for there to be more "competitiveness proofing" in a new agreement, Mr Begg warned: "The key consideration for us is that competitiveness does not become a race to the bottom of the European league of pay and conditions."
He did not want to put preconditions on talks and accepted partnership had been "good for the country", but the time had come to face up to certain problems.
Under past agreements, "profits have been subsidised through wages supported by taxation to encourage foreign direct investment. In consequence public spending is one of the lowest in the EU and we have under-provision of many essential social services."
Furthermore, "a large body of employers do not recognise trade unions as legitimate social partners. In the catch-up phrase of our development it was possible to set aside issues of principle in favour of a problem solving approach. This was the right thing to do at the time, but can it continue?
"We are now at 112 per cent of the EU average on an income-per-capita basis but it is very unevenly spread both geographically and amongst socio-economic groupings." Any successor to the PPF that was no more than another pay agreement would represent failure.
SIPTU's national equality secretary, Ms Rosheen Callender, said employers were "skimping" on pension contributions for women. Many older women in particular faced the risk of "pensioner poverty".
"Gone are the days when women can think of their main retirement income deriving from the labours of a husband or partner, with perhaps their own little pension on top of that," she said.
"We have to reverse that culture and insist that for every week worked, by every woman, a pension contribution is made in addition to pay."
ICTU's aim must be "self-sufficiency, dignity and independence, after retirement as well as before, she added. "At present, women are grossly under-represented as members of occupational pension schemes, especially in the private sector where two out of three women workers have no scheme membership at all."
Many employers who could afford good pension schemes were failing to provide them and unions often failed to insist on them.
"We must fight to get this message across - to government, to employers, to our own union negotiators - when negotiating priorities are being set, in both local and national collective bargaining situations," she said.