Talks on a new national pay deal for private sector workers are to begin today with a meeting between union and employer representatives.
If agreement is to be reached, the sides will have to bridge a wide gap between their respective positions, with the employers' body, IBEC, dismissing the unions' opening stance as "nonsense".
Separate discussions on public sector pay have already begun and all the parties are to meet on Friday at a plenary session of the social partners which are party to pay negotiations - the Government, employers and unions.
It is hoped that agreement on an 18-month deal, to cover the second half of the three-year Sustaining Progress partnership programme, can be reached before the end of June.
As well as arrangements on pay, unions are also seeking to open discussions on related matters such as a new benchmarking process for the public sector and a perceived threat to the pay and conditions of employees in companies, including Aer Rianta and CIÉ. Employers are likely to insist that the talks focus narrowly on pay. The parties will set out their respective positions on the structure of the talks at Friday's plenary session, but it could be next week before this issue is resolved.
The atmosphere for today's talks has been soured by the recent row at Independent Newspapers, during which the company refused to have the dispute referred to the Labour Court, in accordance with procedures set out in Sustaining Progress.
As a result, unions say they will be seeking assurances from IBEC at the outset of the talks that its members, including the Independent, are prepared to comply with the terms of partnership agreements.
However, IBEC's director of industrial relations, Mr Brendan McGinty, said yesterday that unions were in no position to lecture the employers' body on compliance with agreements. Unions, he said, rejected far more Labour Court recommendations than did employers.
Senior union negotiator Mr Eamon Devoy, of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, said if employers insisted on a pay deal that did not exceed inflation, the talks would "not get off first base". He said it was going to be very difficult for the sides to reach agreement.
