THERE is a growing divide between organisations involved in social dialogue, like trade unions and employer bodies, and those looking after the interests of groups like the unemployed, the European Network of the Unemployed has been told.
Addressing the network's annual conference in Ennis Co Clare, yesterday, the general secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed Mr Mike Allen, told delegates that non-governmental agencies like their own were not yet strong enough to engage the participation of the main social partners.
"The result of this will damage the interests of unemployed people," he said. "NGOs and voluntary organisations will argue the case for the poor, but without any labour market analysis, while trade unions will negotiate in the labour market without any analysis of poverty.
"Trade unions and EU governments must recognise unemployed organisations as something more than NGOs or community groups. We come from the same sector but are concerned with issues of employment, economics and tax.
The German trade union movement has had to grapple with major problems of unemployment since the country's unification, Mr Jeurgen Schumann of IG Metall told the conference. Cuts in social expenditure had occurred and German unions were building new alliances with groups representing the poor and the unemployed.
Trade unions must work more closely with the unemployed, but they cannot become the voice of the unemployed, Ms Anne Middleton of the Northern Ireland union, Unison, told the conference. She said the best way for unions to fight unemployment was by working as a partnership with unemployed groups.