The national pay talks are set to resume today with the trade union Mandate set to return to the table after an absence of two years.
Mandate, which represents around 44,000 staff in the retail and bar sector, withdrew from the social partnership in 2006 because it claimed that national deals had failed to deliver for low-paid workers in the private sector.
In the interim, the union has negotiated locally with employers and has said it secured a number of deals which gave workers increases over and above those in the national agreement.
Mandate general secretary John Douglas yesterday said that while the union would be taking part in the talks there still remained a huge degree of scepticism as to the resolve of the process and the negotiators to deliver a better deal for lower-paid workers.
The national pay talks resume this morning with a presentation on the economy by the Department of Finance.