Representatives of bank officials and teachers have decided to recommend that their members reject the proposed new national pay deal, "Towards 2016", in forthcoming national ballots on the issue.
In a sign of growing discontent with the agreement among some unions in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), over 300 delegates to a Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) conference, which debated the issue yesterday, unanimously decided to tell members to reject the deal.
In a similar move, the Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) also said its executive would be recommending that its members vote against the deal.
However, it remains to be seen whether the two unions will decide to refuse to implement the deal if it is ratified by Ictu's overall membership at a special conference in September.
At least one other union, the 17,000-strong Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), has decided to make a similar recommendation for rejection to its members when they are balloted on the issue in coming weeks.
However, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU), the country's largest craft union with more than 40,000 members, has said it will advise its members to accept the deal.
Similarly, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, which represents primary teachers, is also recommending that its members approve the deal.
The vote of the State's largest union, Siptu, which has traditionally supported previous deals, is also seen as crucial to the outcome of September's Ictu conference.
But delegates from second and third level who attended the TUI conference yesterday heard calls from its incoming president, Tim O'Meara, for it to encourage other "like-minded" unions to reject the new deal.
"This agreement is a disgrace. It is neither fair nor balanced," he told delegates. "We must make sure we get the word out to other unions . . . we can take no more, but we are being asked to take more."
Yesterday's vote supports a similar decision taken by the TUI's executive recently, meaning that the TUI's 13,000 members are now being strongly urged by their leaders to vote against the deal.
Speaking after the result of yesterday's vote became known, Mr O'Meara told The Irish Times that the union wished to see that the agreement is rejected.
"We want to start again and hope it would take the views of the workers on board," he said.
However, the IBOA was remaining tight-lipped on attempts by the TUI to build a consensus against "Towards 2016". A spokesman said the executive had very specific concerns about its own industry, and would have to study the TUI declaration more carefully before coming to a conclusion on it.
The IBOA is to ballot its members on the issue this week, and is concerned about the absence of local bargaining provisions in the agreement. It is also particularly concerned about proposals from Bank of Ireland to introduce a new pension scheme, which it fears may be copied by the industry as a whole.
The IBOA executive believes the level of profits currently enjoyed by the banking industry should open a discussion on productivity and pay between the banks and the workers, something that would be specifically outlawed under "Towards 2016".