Trade unionists should be cautious about organising public protests, the general secretary of ICTU Mr David Begg has said despite threats of a general strike being mooted at Congress's biennial congress in Tralee today.
Plans to break up CIE have resulted in a number of trade unions issuing stern warnings of strike action that would affect both rail and bus services as well as some of the State's main airports.
The State's largest union, SIPTU, is threatening to "mobilise" "thousands of workers in the public service" in protest at what vice president, Mr Jack O'Connor described as the Government's free-market fundamentalism.
He told delegates that shortly after the latest social partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress, was agreed, the minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, broke its terms by publicly announcing plans to break up CIE without consulting with unions.
"It took Minister Seamus Brennan no more than nine days to sever that agreement - declaring in an interview in the Irish Times- that CIE would be dismantled; Dublin Bus services would be privatised; Aer Rianta would be broken up into three separate companies; and a private terminal would be imposed at Dublin Airport and practically inviting confrontation from the trade unions," Mr O'Connor said.
Security of employment for thousands of workers are affected by such decisions and privatisation often leads to the replacement of "good employment with non-union insecure jobs", he said.
"We hope that confrontation can be avoided. But if it cannot, then despite their superior financial resources and their influence in the media, the reckless freemarket fundamentalists in this Government may not find the experience as rewarding as they anticipate," Mr O'Connor warned.
His remarks were echoed at a debate on the issue by the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU) and the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU).
TEEU national secretary, Mr Arthur Hall, warned of a "summer of discontent" while ATGWU district secretary Mr John Bolger said unions could not afford "to do nothing" while plans to privatise semi-states continued.
But the ICTU general secretary said trade unionists should beware using the "failed model" of public demonstrations to achieve their aims, saying public support could not be ignored.
Mr Begg reminded the conference of how farmers' protests over Sustaining Progress made no progress leading to their representatives groups being forced negotiate. "There is a salutary lesson in all of that," he said.
In an implicit criticism of some union officials and Mr Brennan, he later told RTE radio that workers' anger had been fomented by careless public comments.
He said: "If we get an engagement on the issues instead of an engagement on the personalities - which unfortunately has characterised public discourse on this up to now - then I think we can put forward quite cogent arguments which suggest that a number of the approaches to deregulation and privatisation of public services are in fact mistaken and in the longer term will be quite damaging."