The head of the country's largest trade union has warned that industrial action "on a very dramatic scale" could be needed to fight against what he described as an ongoing attack on workers in all sectors.
However, Siptu president Jack O'Connor said such dramatic industrial action would only come about in support of an overall plan to address issues affecting workers' rights across the economy.
Mr O’Connor said the issues at stake were far broader than the controversial pension levy introduced by the Government for 350,000 staff in the public service. He said that the assault on workers currently under way was as much about driving down wages as an alternative to a currency devaluation as it was about correcting the public finances without the better-off contributing a cent.
The Siptu leader said the attack on workers had started with the construction industry federation seeking to cut pay for its employees by 10 per cent, but that a similar trend was now developing across the economy.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) will tomorrow consider proposals for a national day of demonstration against the new pension levy for public servants and at "the failure of the Government to agree a social solidarity pact for economic recovery".
The proposal for the Ictu day of action was put forward by Ictu's public services committee at a meeting this afternoon. The national executive of Ictu will decide tomorrow on any further action that should be taken.
The chairman of Ictu's public services committee, Peter McLoone, said it could "require more than one day of demonstrations to get the Government to recognise the depth of feeling among trade union members".
The demonstrations are likely to focus on issues such as unemployment, private sector pensions, and measures to assist people in difficulties with mortgages as well as the pensions levy.
Mr McLoone said that the level of anger among public servants at the levy was "completely unprecedented".
Speaking after a three-hour meeting of his union’s national executive today, Mr O'Connor of Siptu said that any industrial action would involve much more than "the walks around town that some people appear to be focusing on".
Mr O'Connor said he hoped tomorrow's meeting of the executive of Ictu could result in a united trade union response to problems facing workers regardless of where they worked. He said that Siptu would be proposing a "relentless national campaign" to promote a fairer and better way of tackling the economic crisis from which noting would be excluded. He said that there had been a very successful campaign waged for some time to divide worker against worker as a means of facilitating the introduction of pay cuts right across the economy.
Mr O'Connor said that although it might appear to the Government that things were going well and that they had workers at each other's throats, the passage of time would show otherwise. Mr O’Connor accused the Government of being party to an agenda with the employers to drive down wages across the economy.
He said talks with the Government on a social-solidarity pact to deal with the economic crisis would not resume unless "working people demonstrated to the authorities and to the employers that they would not get a walkover on this issue".
