SIPTU's vice-president, Mr Des Geraghty, has warned the Government that it must introduce the national minimum wage at a rate which would guarantee all workers a real take-home rate of £5 per hour.
He said if the Government tried to introduce the minimum wage at the £4.40 rate recommended for 1997, without taking into account pay rises since, the trade union movement would have to set its own minimum standards.
SIPTU would support industrial action by workers to achieve a £5 minimum take-home rate, which was part of a range of measures needed to tackle the poverty traps associated with low pay, temporary, casual and contract labour.
While welcoming a statutory minimum wage, trade unions would never abdicate their responsibility to raise the real living standards of workers.
He called for "a vigorous union campaign" to place greater emphasis on flat-rate increases of basic pay, the removal of thousands of low-paid workers from the tax net, an end to poverty traps in the welfare system and tax relief for childcare.
Trade unionists "can no longer ignore the growing gap between higher- and lower-paid workers, the vulnerability of such workers and the insecurity of enterprises that rely on low pay to secure their competitiveness".
The ICTU deputy general secretary, Ms Patricia O'Donovan, said a minimum wage was of central importance to the trade union movement. The ICTU had campaigned for £5 an hour as a fair minimum, but had accepted the £4.40 set by the National Minimum Wage Commission as a significant step forward.
The commission had used the formula that the minimum wage should be two-thirds of median earnings.
"In today's terms, that means a minimum rate of £4.60. If it is not to be introduced until the Government's target date of April 2000, that means a minimum rate of around £4.80 per hour," she said.
She also called for the annual adjustment of the rate in line with movements in earnings and for effective enforcement machinery.
"A clear message must go out from the outset to employers who do not pay their workers that they will be pursued, they will be heavily penalised, they will be exposed."