EMPLOYERS’ GROUP Ibec has told trade unions it is prepared to work towards a new agreement on economic recovery.
The employers’ group said that it was prepared to meet the unions directly or through the aegis of the Department of the Taoiseach.
In a shift in position it has also signalled that it would not stand in the way of employers who were in a position to pay wage increases under the national agreement on a voluntary basis. It had previously urged that the deal be deferred indefinitely – a stance which has concerned trade unions.
In a letter sent last Friday to the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) David Begg, and copied to the secretary general to the Government Dermot McCarthy, Ibec said that it was concerned that the country was in a vacuum pending the forthcoming budget and facing a damaging day of strikes next Monday.
It urged the Ictu to call off its day of strikes and said that this would improve the climate for any new talks to take place.
Ibec director general Turlough O’Sullivan said that it saw merit in some elements of the Ictu 10-point plan for economic recovery. He said that Ibec believed, in the context of its own recovery proposals, that there was “a basis for a joint accord on the way forward”.
“As you know, we strongly believe that the public finances must be stabilised, the banking system normalised and enterprises supported by measures that will address the awful haemorrhage of jobs,” he said.
Ibec proposed that new and appropriate mechanisms should be put in place that recognised “the dramatically changed economic circumstances including the urgent need to assist enterprises (especially in manufacturing and the traded sectors) to better cope with competitiveness and cost challenges, the rapid rate of job losses and the substantial price deflation that has taken place over the past months”.
Ibec said that it was “aware that a relatively small number of employers have paid the first phase of the transitional agreement under Towards 2016 and that a small number of others may also be willing to do so, of their own accord, without duress and on an exceptional basis”.
Mr O’Sullivan said that it was prepared to explore the basis for a deal which recognised at a minimum the need for a pay freeze for a duration and for disputes to be resolved through the normal industrial relations machinery.