THE LEADERSHIP of the country's largest union Siptu has signalled to its shop stewards, officials and activists that the proposed new national pay agreement, although not perfect, represented the best available deal that could be negotiated.
Addressing a special delegate conference on the proposed agreement yesterday, Siptu president Jack O'Connor said he was "absolutely convinced that nothing had been left at the table and that there was nothing to be gained by going back for further negotiations.
"We could, of course, be wrong. But every morsel of our being as experienced negotiators tell us that there is nothing left over there, and there is nothing left to be gained by going back there", he said. However, critics of the proposed agreement - which offers increases of 6 per cent over 21 months - described it "as the worst partnership deal ever".
The Siptu national executive is expected to make a recommendation on the proposed deal tomorrow. Members of the union will vote on the agreement over the next few weeks.
Kieran Allen of the education branch said that no one could say with certainty what the rate of inflation would be in 2009. However, he said that the current inflation level of 4.3 per cent was higher than the amount on offer under the first phase of the proposed deal.
He also argued that the wage increases on offer in the private sector should be described as the "maximum possible" as they were not guaranteed. He said that a lot of employers were going to try to invoke new inability-to-pay provisions in the proposed agreement to reduce the level of increases.
Des Derwin of the Dublin electronics and engineering branch said that he had 15 reasons for rejecting the proposed deal.
He said that any deal which relied on a pay increase of 0.3 per cent, as projected by the union after its estimate for inflation was taken into account, was not reliable. He said that the deal contained a year's pay freeze for those in the public sector, but there was no mention of a year-long profit freeze or price freeze.
Paul Hansard said that the construction branch had not yet made a decision on the deal, but that he had some personal concerns about the agreement. He said that the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) had not yet indicated whether it supported the deal. He said that as there was no provision for retrospective payments in the construction sector, if the CIF continued to sit on its hands, that the three-month pay freeze in the agreement could extend to a 12-month or two-year pay freeze.
