THE Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the employers' body, IBEC, clashed again yesterday on the effect of national pay programmes since 1987.
ICTU claimed the programmes have serious shortcomings while IBEC said the record does not show that the trade union movement went through a period of sacrifice.
Mr Peter Cassells, ICTU's general secretary, acknowledged that the programmes had achieved many of their objectives.
However, he said the shortcomings lay in the areas of long term unemployment, the poor quality of some jobs, the lack of opportunity for workers to gain extra benefits when profits are exceptionally high and the growth in social exclusion in specific neighbourhoods in Irish cities.
Mr Cassells, who was speaking at a conference in Dublin on "Workplace Partnership for Competitiveness", said ICTU is proposing that the Government, unions, employers, farmers and the wider community should negotiate a Framework for a New Partnership to deliver genuine cooperation at all levels.
Mr Gerry Dempsey, a director of IBEC, told the same conference he challenged the proposition that the partnership programmes since 1987 have involved sacrifice for the trade union movement.
The first programme was born out of a crisis in the public finances, Mr Dempsey said. There were no benefits for workers in massive debt, massive budget deficits, high taxes, a reduction in real wages in the period 1982-1987, with average inflation of 9 per cent, no growth in employment and rising unemployment.
Now, as we came to the end of 1996, Mr Dempsey said debt was still excessive but much lower as a percentage of GNP, there was a current budget surplus, low inflation, low interest rates, an increase in real pay of over 2 per cent per annum, reducing unemployment and significantly increasing employment.
Dr Hubert Krieger of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions told the conference the utilisation of co operation and partnership as a productive force was an extreme challenge for all concerned.
The partnership approach had improved quality, according to a survey of Irish management, he said. About 75 per cent of Irish companies had increased their output and nearly 60 per cent had reduced their costs due to some measures of "direct participation" in work organisation.