GOVERNMENT hopes that trade unions will accept Partnership 2000 received a boost last night with the decision of members of the MSF union to approve the deal.
Sources at the Manufacturing Science Finance union confirmed that, while it actually voted against entering talks on a new agreement at last year's party delegate conference of the Irish. Congress of Trade Unions, 60 per cent of its members had now voted to accept the terms of the deal negotiated.
The deputy national secretary, Mr Jerry Shanahan, said last night that the Budget was a crucial factor in swinging the vote. "The significant difference in this area is that tax reliefs were made part of the Partnership 2000 deal. Members see it as a step in the right direction towards tax reform and feel the unions can at last begin to influence policies.
An endorsement of the social aspects of the deal came yesterday from the Irish Organisation of the Unemployed.
Members have voted by two to one to accept Partnership 2000. INOU's chairman, Mr Paul Billings, said afterwards: "We recognise that the deal is highly inadequate in a number of areas, and we will persist in lobbying to have these inadequacies addressed."