Delegates to SIPTU's biennial conference in Ennis, Co Clare, today will be asked to approve a more restrictive method for nominating candidates in elections to national officerships.
Until now any branch with at least 500 members could nominate candidates in elections for the union's president, vice-president and general secretary, making SIPTU one of the most democratic organisations in the State.
It is easier to obtain a nomination to contest elections for the three top positions in the union than it is to qualify for election to the union's executive, or its eight regional executives. If the change is approved it will mean that candidates will require nomination by five branches with an aggregate membership of at least 5,000.
The system, while still comparatively open, would effectively preclude the sort of challenge to the union establishment made by Ms Carolann Duggan, the Waterford shopfloor worker, in two elections earlier this year.
Ms Duggan ran for the SIPTU presidency with the backing of just one branch, Dublin Education. More recently she stood for SIPTU's vice-presidency with nominations from four branches.
While the threat from Ms Duggan appears to have receded considerably, the union leadership is unhappy with a situation that allows almost any member in benefit to secure nomination for senior office at what may be one poorly-attended meeting of almost any of its 138 branches.
The decision on a more restricted nomination system will be taken at a closed session of the conference this afternoon. Delegates will also hear that paid-up membership of SIPTU at the end of last year was 179,019, the highest in the union's history. .
Funds have risen from £15.9 million in 1995 to £17.4 million. The largest single increase was an extra £700,000 in the industrial contingency (strike fund).