Comment: Siptu agreement negotiations will safeguard rights and combat employer greed, writes Jack O'Connor

Over the past decade, we have laid the basis for securing an unprecedented standard of living and quality of life for everyone on this island. We have created one of the world's most dynamic economies, but the question remains whether we can make this one of the best places to live on the planet.

Last Monday's announcement by the decommissioning body that the IRA has placed its arms beyond use has been an added bonus and should clear the way for a fair and democratic resolution of the age-old conflict affecting all who live in Ireland. Economic growth in Northern Ireland, where we have branches in Derry, Belfast and Newry, will be stimulated by last week's announcement.

With 220,000 members, Siptu has traditionally adopted a broad approach to national agreements in the Republic because we represent the entire workforce in microcosm. Our members have done relatively well out of past agreements and under Sustaining Progress, they gained the highest increases in real pay since the second World War.

We also secured major improvements in areas such as increased statutory redundancy payments and, for the first time in the history of the State, we secured legislation supporting the right of workers to be represented by a trade union.

Of course, business has benefited even more. Corporate profits are high and so is the productivity of our workforce. Employees have embraced change at an unprecedented rate. A financially literate workforce has seen the benefits of co-operation with management and of improving their own skills and qualifications.

The challenge facing us now is whether we continue moving towards a high-skill model and invest in the social infrastructure needed to sustain it, or allow some ruthless employers to pursue a race to the bottom for short-term profit.

The insatiability of some employers was demonstrated recently in the construction industry, where Turkish migrant workers were being paid half the minimum wage and most starkly of all at Irish Ferries, where the company proposes replacing existing unionised staff with workers on a third of the current rate.

Employers who indulge in such blatant social dumping are not interested in sustainable economic and social development. They are quite happy to erode standards of employment painstakingly won by unions for workers and their families over the past 30 years.

Next week, Siptu delegates will have to consider how to deal with this threat. Simply negotiating a new national agreement and haggling over a few extra percentage points on pay for those already inside the tent is not an option.

At the same time, experienced union activists know the forces promoting a race to the bottom will not disappear in the absence of national agreements, rather they will increase the vigour of their campaign.

If we decide we can't live with national agreements, we will have to reshape our organisation and equip ourselves to survive in the new environment. We will be holding five workshops during the conference to look at the most effective way to pursue our objectives in areas such as health, childcare, industrial development, employment standards, and art and culture. The latter workshop is being held because as trade unionists, we happen to believe life is about living. We work in order to live, not live to work.

The recent UN Human Development Report concluded that Ireland is the second richest country on earth measured by GDP, but that we also have the third highest level of poverty in the 18 industrialised countries surveyed.

We utterly reject the argument that inequality is necessary for prosperity. We find extremes of wealth and poverty morally and ethically repugnant, and we believe they are economically detrimental as well.

Next week, delegates will look for the Government to protect employment standards, strengthen the industrial inspectorate, enforce fair employment clauses in public contracts and ensure vulnerable immigrant workers are protected and integrated into the workforce. It will look for positive action in pressing social issues such as the need for integrated child and elderly care, free health services and good quality, cheap public transport.

If agreement is not possible, Siptu will need to re-order its priorities in a post-agreement environment. We will need strategies to deal positively with imaginative employers who see the advantages of robust social partnership and we will need different methods to deal with those who believe that workers should be cheap and expendable.

Thanks to changes we have introduced within Siptu and the relations we have developed with other unions, nationally and internationally, we are better placed than ever before to deal with a post-agreement environment.

For instance, the success of our federation with the TEEU demonstrated its effectiveness in the recent ESB dispute and we are finalising a strategic agreement with Impact. Notwithstanding differences around strategy and tactics in the past, we are building stronger links with the ATGWU in Ireland and the UK.

On September 21st, the Ictu executive endorsed a motion from Siptu and the Irish Nurses' Organisation to develop a major campaign to improve the health services.

The stakes in the negotiations on a new agreement are very high. The existing model is no longer sustainable and we are not prepared to allow a small cabal of greed-driven employers to thrust our society into reverse gear in order to pursue a narrow agenda of maximising profits. The only question facing delegates is the best way of safeguarding our gains so far and using them to build a fairer, more democratic society.

Jack O'Connor is president of Siptu