Future partnership talks should focus on key issues that could turn Ireland from being a "very good country into a great country", the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has said.
Yesterday, David Begg told Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Ictu conference in Belfast that while partnership had achieved great things, unions believed they should now focus on key targets and timeframes for their delivery.
With Sustaining Progress nearing the end of its three-year term, talks on a successor partnership deal begin in autumn. A motion on low pay by the Civil, Public and Services Union, passed by the conference yesterday, set out priorities unions would raise in any new round of talks.
It called on Ictu to tackle a widening gap between those on low and high pay, put the gender pay gap "at the top of the agenda", promote "real income gains" for social welfare recipients, develop the affordable housing initiative and increase childcare availability.
Responding to Mr Ahern's keynote address, Mr Begg mentioned a major conference theme when he identified abuses of migrant workers as another priority.
He said unions had learned from partnership.
There was a sense that: "What we really need to do is pick out a few key things that are important and essential to turning this country from being a very good country into a great country. We can figure out a timeframe in which that can be done, and that will be the way I think to proceed for the future."
But there was no point in Ictu having "high-minded" policies if its members were not being reasonably well-treated, he said.
"It's like being inside the tent smoking the pipe of peace, but the cavalry are outside killing your braves." That was happening at a practical level because there was still "extraordinary hostility" to trade unions.
Unions tried to do business but were constantly attacked by people "who have no interest in the country, may I say, but who have only interest in greed". Some way would have to be found to preserve the institutional role of trade unions and their activists.
Earlier, Mr Ahern had said there were "of course" anti-partnership and anti-union voices. "They overlook the fact that collective bargaining continues and is a critically important influence on wage levels, even in economies with low union density."
