Union president is expected to outline plan for resisting cuts, writes MARTIN WALL
THE BIENNIAL delegate conference of Siptu will get under way today for what could be its most contentious and lively gathering in years.
The conference comes a week after the union leadership warned its branches to prepare for a campaign of strikes and industrial action to resist pay cuts, job losses and the dismantling of existing terms and conditions.
It also comes in the wake of hints by the Government that public sector pay cuts could be on the agenda, and a decision by the union’s health service branch to lodge a claim for a pay rise of 3.5 per cent under the national agreement signed a year ago.
It is expected that delegates at the conference will strongly question the leadership about the strategy of the trade union movement for dealing with the Government under the social partnership process.
It is understood that at local meetings around the country in recent weeks many activists and shop stewards argued that the decision of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) last March to suspend a campaign aimed at securing a national agreement on economic recovery with the Government was a mistake.
The trade union movement subsequently accepted an invite from the Taoiseach to go back into talks; however, the unions maintain that these talks effectively came to nothing.
Siptu is currently involved in a number of lengthy and bitter disputes, such as those involving Coca-Cola HBC and Marine Terminals Ltd in the Dublin docklands over outsourcing and reductions in pay and conditions.
Members and industrial relations observers will watch carefully the speech by Siptu president Jack O’Connor tonight for details of the union’s strategy for dealing with the Government and employers.
Union leaders have already signalled that a new campaign announced by Ictu aimed at influencing the Government in the run-up to the Budget in December will not be called off unless proposals considered worthy of being put before the membership emerge from talks.
This week’s conference is also very important for Siptu for a number of other reasons: it marks the centenary of the union and will see votes taken on plans to reorganise its structures.
Over recent years the union’s leadership realised that it was only representing members in companies that recognised it for bargaining purposes. Under rule change proposals which will be tabled this week, the union would by 2013 allocate up to 25 per cent of membership contribution income to the purpose of organising workers who are not in unions. Prior to 2004 the union had no such budget; at present the figure is roughly 10 per cent.