The Government is favouring employers in the negotiations aimed at agreeing a new national wage agreement, a senior trade union official claimed today.
SIPTU vice president Mr Jack O'Connor, who is chairman of the influential Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) private sector committee, says the Government should adopt an impartial, leadership role in the National Pay talks which started yesterday.
Speaking to SIPTU's western region biennial conference this afternoon, Mr O'Connor said: "Even the employers representatives were taken aback at the degree of bias displayed towards them." He said private sector employers had not originally sought the pay pause but decided to issue their call because of the Government's position.
Opening the talks yesterday, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy warned public sector employees that pay increases would need to be delayed if the benchmarking awards are to be made.
The Minister would find his position almost impossible to maintain if private sector workers were not subject to similar conditions.
However, Mr O'Connor today warned that workers would not accept a deal that resulted in their standard of living falling. "In this economy, which is the envy of all Europe, workers must at the very least have the right to expect to be able to maintain incomes ahead of the rate of inflation," he said.
Inflation could be the "critical issue" on which a new agreement hinged, he said, adding that the Government should develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem.
He warned that failure to agree a new partnership deal would be the fault of Government. "He said they should "adopt a leadership role in the process providing guidance and levering the parties towards agreement".