Five trade unions are to participate in a new-style recruitment system aimed at attracting workers who are currently without any form of union representation.
The new drive will involve a TV, radio and press advertisement campaign designed to publicise the benefits of trade union membership.
Members recruited under the new system will be able to obtain information and advisory assistance online or in written form or on the telephone.
A new high-level advice centre, staffed by personnel with industrial-relations experience, will handle queries.
It will be supported by a new employment conditions research unit.
The new service will initially be established in Cork and Waterford.
Full details of the plan will be provided at the biennial conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) to be held next month in Bundoran, Co Donegal.
Industrial Relations News reported yesterday that the five unions involved in the new-style recruitment drive would be Siptu, Impact, the CWU, TEEU and Mandate.
A spokesman for Ictu said the new system represented a new model of recruitment and was a new departure for the trade union movement.
The spokesman said the new system would be aimed in particular at vulnerable employees such as domestic workers or those in areas that unions had not been able to reach in the past.
The Ictu spokesman said that surveys in the past had indicated that one of the main reasons why people had not joined unions was because they had never been asked.
He said that the people concerned often also had poor information about unions and union activities.
Overall trade union membership has been on the rise in Ireland in recent years.
However, as a percentage of the growing workforce, trade union "density" has been falling.
Ictu estimates that based on 1.7 million employees in the country, trade union "density" is running at about 36 per cent, compared with 39 per cent three years ago.
Meanwhile, Ictu is expected to seek a meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern regarding the current inflation rate in advance of its conference next month.
Following official figures last week which showed inflation continuing to run at about 5 per cent, Ictu urged the Government to increase the level of mortgage tax relief to homeowners or to reduce the rate of VAT as part of an urgent action plan.
Mr Ahern said last week that it was essential that inflationary pressures were curbed and that he and the Minister for Finance would meet union and employer representatives on this issue.
Employers' group Ibec is expected to look for Government action on energy costs and local authority charges at its meeting with the Taoiseach.
