The membership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has broken the 700,000 barrier for the first time in its history, according to the biennial report for 1997-1999.
While international trends continue to show a decline in the number of workers unionised Irish membership has increased by more than 40,000 in the past two years.
In the year ending February 1999, the increase was 25,469. Growth has been strongest in the Republic, where membership grew by 19,927 to almost 520,000. In Northern Ireland, membership grew by 5,542 to just over 200,000.
However, Irish trade union density, the proportion of the workforce organised in trade unions, has declined because union recruitment has not kept pace with employment growth. It is now 48 per cent overall, compared with 55 per cent a decade ago. The congress executive has set up a working group on recruitment to target potential growth areas.
The report is one of a series of documents issued to its 64 affiliated unions and 31 affiliated trades councils in advance of next week's conference in Killarney. They indicate a major change is taking place in the thinking of the ICTU leadership.
In the foreword to a major policy document on the Challenges Facing Unions, the ICTU general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, warns members that both the State and the trade union movement are "at a crossroads. We have choices to make. We have created a highly competitive economy and now have the resources to become a prosperous and fair society which could provide every individual with the opportunity to achieve full potential."
While the ICTU report highlights the advantages which accrued to workers in terms of employment, pay rates, tax reform and improved services from national agreements, Mr Cassells stresses that the issues facing the trade union movement are more fundamental than whether there is a successor to Partnership 2000.
"If our vision does not reach beyond the goal of competitiveness, we could slide into a shallow, selfish and highly divided society," he says. Strategic choices have to be made and long-term goals identified "regardless of whether we have a national programme or not. But, since social partnership is a process, these choices can still be made in partnership, even if we don't have such a programme."
He also points out that the changes ahead involve "changes about ourselves and the way we relate to others", as well as traditional preoccupations. As reported in The Irish Times last week, some of the documents call for radical changes in the terminology and structures of the trade union movement.
They also call for changes in attitudes to employers. "There is little we can do with a clenched fist except raise it in defiance, use it to hit somebody or thump the table," the report says. "An open hand is more pliable, more supple and more suited to conditions in the modern world." However, it makes clear that trade unions would reserve the "clenched fist" approach for those employers unwilling to adopt a partnership approach to the trade union movement.
Perhaps most significant is the ICTU call on members to recognise the need to shape public consensus. Unions particularly needed to recognise the importance of winning over public opinion, whether in terms of specific disputes or in campaigns on wider issues such as childcare facilities.
It warns member unions that "feelings shape the national consensus as much as logic" and that they would be foolish to ignore the feelings of consumers, patients, students and other groups affected by strikes. Trade unionists were also consumers and members of organisations with other priorities.
Although the ICTU leadership is clearly trying to prevent the debate on a successor to Partnership 2000 from dominating the agenda - a special delegate conference will be held in November to discuss a new national agreement - it may not have things all its own way.
Several major unions, such as SIPTU, Mandate and IMPACT have already expressed their anger at the decision of the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, to introduce the National Minimum Wage at £4.40p, which they regard as a breach of the spirit of national partnership. Smaller organisations such as the Irish Medical Organisation are indicating they are making support for a new national agreement conditional on securing sectional concessions such as a shorter working week for hospital doctors.