More than 1,000 home help employees in the Dublin area have joined SIPTU in recent months following the launch of a major recruitment drive.
The union has also targeted building workers in a concerted attempt to increase its number of activists and expand its current membership of more than 200,000.
SIPTU has recruited seven organisers this year since a new unit, dedicated to recruiting and organising new members, was set up this year at an annual cost of €1 million. Other unions are also giving increased priority to organising new members, given the declining percentage of workers in trade union membership.
While the overall number of unionised workers continues to increase, the rise has not kept pace with the rapid expansion of the labour force.
Mr Noel Dowling, the head of SIPTU's organising unit, says that about a quarter of private sector workers are now members of trade unions. Overall, when the public sector is taken into account, some 37 per cent of workers are union members. This is a drop from 60 per cent in 1990.
SIPTU's decision to set up a dedicated organising unit arose from one of the promises made by its president, Mr Jack O'Connor, during his election campaign for that post.
It took on its first three organisers in March and four more have joined since. The seven have received "intensive training", with the assistance of the British TUC.
Mr Dowling said the unit set about making a quick impact by demonstrating what could be achieved if organising new members was to be approached in a strategic way.
"We needed to get people over the idea that an organising or a recruitment campaign involved leafleting an industrial estate on a Friday afternoon, and then spending the next week moaning about the fact that it didn't work."
The unit immediately identified the home help area as one where there was potential for recruitment.
It concentrated on the Dublin area, where home helps are employed by 39 voluntary boards of management.
Meetings were organised at locations all over the city at which the benefits of union membership were outlined.
More than 1,000, or about half the home help employees in the capital, have now joined the union.
