Next month delegates to the ICTU are to be asked to take a radical new look at how the trade union movement does its business. A new report, "Challenges Facing Unions and Irish Society in the New Millennium" outlines options, not just on whether to negotiate a successor to Partnership 2000 but where the labour movement stands on much wider issues.
The report says social partnership has been successful in tackling economic crises, unemployment and creating a highly competitive society, but lacks a "vision" to sustain it. "If our vision does not reach beyond the goal of competitiveness, we could slide into a shallow, selfish and highly divided society," the ICTU general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells, writes in the report's foreword.
The report looks hard at how trade unions do business. "Some of the language we use is dated and means little or nothing to many modern workers," it says and suggests replacing the term shop steward with "local rep" and dropping "trade" from trade union as no longer relevant.
It also says meetings should either be built into serious social events to involve members or, if intended merely to transact routine business, kept to 30 minutes at most. As far as possible they should be based in the workplace, or around the working day rather than in the evening or weekends, as at present.
There are further shocks in store for labour traditionalists. "Despite all the `battles' that were won" in the past, the report says the basic relationship between employers and workers has not changed fundamentally in 100 years. "After 30 years in an organisation a worker can be sent packing with nothing to show for his years of service but a redundancy cheque," it says.
"Our objective should be to share power with employers in a manner that will give workers a real say in all decisions that affect their working lives. A new process of partnership and co-operation is more likely to lead to actual power than the old pattern of confrontation and conflict."
It points out that many of the original aims of unions, such as the eight-hour day, five-day week and annual holidays have been achieved in the developed world. While union recognition continues to be an issue for many workers, this "should not prevent us from pursuing a new agenda for the majority of workers who already enjoy the benefits won by unions over several decades. We must demonstrate the benefits of union membership in today's extremely competitive and highly pressurised workplaces."
The report says most people work in a wide range of occupations as salary or wage earners. For these, "making ends meet is a struggle, although mostly a successful one. Insecurity about the future is a very big issue." They are concerned about maintaining earnings, mortgage repayments, affordable childcare, ageing parents and commuting time to work as well as basic pay rates.
"One of the big challenges for unions in the new millennium will be to find new ways of making jobs more secure in the face of a drive by market forces to make them less secure."
An ICTU survey last year found job security the most important issue for most workers, followed by pay, fairer taxation and pensions, in that order.
The broader agenda should aim at a fairer society. "Our commitment to fairness for all will be tested by our approach to low pay. Unions have already shown leadership by agreeing not to lodge claims based on restoring differentials with workers who qualify for the new minimum wage. A further test will be our attitude to flat-rate increases in any new agreements negotiated at national, sectoral or local level."
In dealing with employers, the report says "our biggest challenge may be to stop seeing them as `our natural enemy' ". It suggests a two-tier approach, co-operating positively with those who recognise unions and showing leadership in confronting traditional hostility to such an approach. It is less explicit on what to do with anti-union firms.
The report says greater attention should be given to winning public support in disputes and in campaigns on wider issues. It argues that the militancy of farmers' organisations has ultimately led to their decline "and the departure of over half their members from farming". It points out that low-paid strikers will get more support than well-paid strikers.
Arrogant, intransigent employers will get less sympathy than employers who make real efforts to solve a dispute.
"Why should unions be concerned about the consensus? Because if we are outside the national consensus it is much more difficult to achieve our aims." With the same rationale it argues against "returning to the trenches" after Partnership 2000.
National agreements had delivered "unprecedented economic growth" and provided the opportunity of "sharing real power and influence with employers" and government. The report says unions should use partnership at all levels to make our prosperous and competitive society fairer.