Analysis: The breakdown of the pay talks may prove irretrievable, writes Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent
An obituary may be premature, but social partnership was barely clinging to life last night at the tender age of 15 years.
In its short life it delivered, according to its supporters, the stable industrial environment that provided a foundation for the economic boom. Attempts to keep it alive for a further 18 months ended just before 1 a.m. yesterday when the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, Mr Dermot McCarthy, brought two days of intensive talks between unions and employers to a conclusion.
The Government called the move an adjournment, but that was polite language for a breakdown. It may prove irretrievable.
It had all looked a good deal more promising when employers and unions returned to Government Buildings on Tuesday afternoon, expressing cautious optimism that a deal could be done. The atmosphere gradually worsened, however, as the two sides attempted to focus on three key issues: pay, union recognition and the employers' demands on compliance.
Direct talks took place for just a few hours over the two long nights of negotiations, which began in earnest on Monday. Most of the time, Mr McCarthy shuttled between rooms, talking first to one side and then the other, attempting in vain to find common ground.
On pay, the gap was still as wide by the end as it had been when all the social partners gathered in Dublin Castle at the end of October to formally begin negotiations.
The employers' body, IBEC, was still demanding a pay pause as part of an 18-month agreement containing a phased, 5 per cent pay increase.
That, said the Irish Congress of Trade Unions general secretary, Mr David Begg, yesterday, was a "complete non-runner".
"The bottom line as far as Congress is concerned is that the IBEC proposals would have meant a reduction in pay in real terms, with unprecedented 'get out' clauses for employers attached, and at a time when the recent Budget failed to index tax allowances and imposed higher levels of indirect taxes and other charges," he said.
With pay proving too difficult an obstacle, the talks focused on two issues, one of crucial importance to unions, the other to employers.
For IBEC, an agreement would only be worth signing if it contained specific compliance measures, requiring unions to adhere to the terms of the deal. It proposed a clause in any new agreement requiring both employers and unions to accept binding Labour Court arbitration "on any matters of application or interpretation".
Unions had no problem with binding arbitration in principle, but said the IBEC proposals were far-reaching, and would restrict their right to take industrial action even in cases where employers had failed to honour the terms of the deal.
IBEC claimed the clause was the minimum it needed to be sure the terms of the agreement would "stick". The union recognition issue proved no less problematic. Unions, unhappy that "right to bargain" provisions introduced last year were failing to deliver substantial progress, sought the introduction of legislation, similar to that applying in the UK, obliging employers by law to recognise unions.
That was dismissed out of hand by both IBEC and the Government, which believes such a measure could dissuade some multinationals from locating in Ireland.
Unions then pressed for measures speeding up the existing provisions, which provide for voluntarily resolution of disputes about recognition.
Employers, it is understood, were prepared to contemplate travelling at least some of the way down this road, but not far enough to get an agreement.
Reaction to the breakdown was decisive on both sides. At a meeting of its executive council yesterday, the ICTU decided that unions in different sectors should begin preparing co-ordinated pay claims. These are certain to be in excess of the rate of inflation.
They are likely to meet an equally co-ordinated response from employers. Mr Brendan McGinty of IBEC said members would be advised on what was required to maintain competitiveness.
In other words, although he did not say so directly, employers would be expected to hold the line and not pay out increases that might raise the bar for others.
Social partnership may still be alive. Free-for-all pay bargaining, however, is already back from the dead.