The Labour Party will be urged to never again go into coalition with Fianna Fail or Fine Gael, in a discussion document being sent to the party tomorrow by the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU).
The document argues that Labour can become the main opposition to Fianna Fail by adopting a new strategy for the millennium with four key elements.
These include preventing Fine Gael from ever forming a coalition government with a cabinet majority under a Fine Gael Taoiseach by refusing to become a junior partner, and rejecting coalition with Fianna Fail.
Other steps advised by the ATGWU are to develop an alternative national programme with affiliated trade unions and build alliances with other progressive parties, independents and the voters they represent.
This would include working out a way of forging alliances with supporters of Sinn Fein, "people who vote not out of any republican agenda but out of frustration with a political system that has trapped them in chronic poverty and deprivation".
The alternative national programme, it suggests, would focus on real wage increases, increased participation of workers in economic decision-making, wealth redistribution and a crusade against social exclusion, tax reform and making available low cost childcare.
The document states that Labour's decision to go into government with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in the past only weakened the party.
It advises the party to declare what its intentions are before elections. Not doing so risks creating a cynicism among voters, it suggests. "If it says it will wait and see, voters will be asked to buy the proverbial pig in a poke and suspect a secret agenda".
Mr Michael O'Reilly, regional secretary of the ATGWU, said that with the first general election of the millennium looming, it was imperative to consider what strategies could propel the left and the Labour Party to a position of major political influence.
The party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, recently ruled out pre-election pacts. He said Labour would be campaigning as an independent party on its own policies, and any decision about entering government would not be made until after a general election when a special delegate conference of members would make that decision.