While the Government has been striving to make progress in the Northern Ireland peace process in recent weeks, it may find that its services are even more urgently required to preserve industrial peace at home.
It had hoped that a high-level group of senior civil servants, trade unionists and employer representatives would resolve the problem of trade union recognition for it, but the group has failed to oblige.
The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, has just received the group's report. It has drawn up "heads of agreement" for a voluntary code. But it has left the thorniest issue of all for the Cabinet to decide: what to do with the small but growing group of employers who will ignore that code.
It was perhaps inevitable that its members would disagree on the type of sanctions required. Basically trade unionists in the group wanted legal penalties imposed on people who ignore the new code, be they workers or employers. On the other hand, the group members from the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation would agree only to what are effectively moral sanctions.
Already one of the trade union members of the group, Mr Michael O'Reilly of the ATGWU, has condemned the report as "a wretched document". Last Thursday he called for a special delegate conference of the ICTU to review participation in Partnership 2000, because the employers had refused to endorse penalties for anti-union companies.
Despite Mr O'Reilly's long track record as a high-profile militant within the trade union movement, Government sources expressed surprise yesterday at his statement. They were even more concerned that other senior trade unionists in the group had not come out and defended the report.
There is much that is worthwhile in the document. Basically it provides a framework that allows disputes over trade union recognition to be referred, first to the Labour Relations Commission and then to the Labour Court. If an employer still refused to negotiate with a trade union at that stage, the court could make an order against the company.
The willingness of IBEC to endorse such an approach is a major victory in itself. One senior IBEC figure said yesterday that there was "a very clear view at the group that this was the best approach if we were to maintain our voluntary tradition of industrial relations in this country".
However, trade unionists point out that Irish industrial relations are increasingly underpinned by legislation on issues like redundancy, equality and working hours. Besides, the recognition problem usually lies with companies like Seagate and Ryanair, which are not even members of IBEC.
The outbreak of a bitter recognition dispute at Ryanair last week has not helped the situation. SIPTU represents the baggage-handlers involved. Its executive meets this week to consider the Budget, but it will now be devoting a considerable part of the meeting to union recognition.
THERE is the added complication that SIPTU is also in the throes of an election, the third in less than a year. This one is for the position of general secretary, and Ms Carolann Duggan, the Socialist Workers' Party member, will once more be campaigning on a revolutionary socialist ticket.
The other candidates, Dublin regional secretary Mr Brendan Hayes and South-West regional secretary Mr John McDonnell, have far more experience and expertise for the position. But SIPTU has large numbers of low-paid members in jobs where unions are not allowed, or barely tolerated. Ms Duggan could strike an emotive chord with some members, if they feel the union is not doing enough to protect their rights.
The stance taken by the SIPTU executive on Wednesday will go a long way to deciding the attitude of other unions ahead of the ICTU executive meeting on January 21st. The Labour Party has already come out strongly against the report, with its spokesman on enterprise, trade and employment, Mr Tommy Broughan, demanding legislation that would impose mandatory penalties on delinquent employers.
Cynics might ask why Labour did not resolve the problem itself. When it was in government with Fianna Fail, the then minister for enterprise and employment, Mr Ruairi Quinn, referred the issue of union recognition to the Employer-Labour Conference. It was the Fine Gael-Labour-Democratic Left government which proposed that the High Level Group sort out the problem.
Now the issue is in the court of the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney. She is not thought to have any problems with recommendations carrying IBEC's stamp of approval, but if the unions decide to push for penalties, they will have to look to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the left wing of Fianna Fail for support.
He will not thank them, but he might thank them less if they were to supinely allow the erosion of union influence and, with it, lose their ability to deliver effective national agreements.
For the facts are that the number of non-union firms and non-union jobs is increasing every year. Only one new job in five is unionised, and there has been an average of 12 union recognitions a year in the 1990s. In the 1980s the average was seven.
"We do not accept that employers can pick and choose on this central issue," SIPTU president Mr Jimmy Somers told his union conference last year. Over the next few weeks the Government will have to make its choice.
