Hospitals, sewage and water treatment are among the services facing disruption from Monday, if 34,000 manual workers in local authorities and health boards go ahead with a threatened strike.
The health services could face the greatest initial disruption. The chief executive of the Health Service Employers' Association, Mr Gerard Barry, said yesterday: "There will be no elective surgery in hospitals from Monday if we have this strike."
He criticised the emergency cover offered by 4,500 craftworkers in the dispute. He said SIPTU, which represents craft and general operatives in the health services, had adopted a more reasonable approach.
All local authority services will be affected. But Dublin city and the three Dublin county authorities will suffer less as general operatives in these authorities are covered by separate pay agreements.
Elsewhere, services such as refuse collection and street cleaning will cease from Monday, as general operatives support a longstanding pay claim by their craft colleagues. The effects will take longer to reach the general public, as they are primarily involved in providing maintenance and emergency services.
The craft unions want an increase of £25.26 a week, to bring their earnings back into line with their counterparts in the private sector and semi-State companies. The figure is reached through the use of an analog, or a formula based on rates in 18 employments. It is complex and neither unions nor employers can agree a figure.
The employers offered a £13 a week rise last November and later the Labour Court increased it to £18.87. The 30,000 SIPTU members involved in the dispute are entitled to 80 per cent of whatever increase is eventually awarded to the craftworkers.
SIPTU national industrial secretary Mr Matt Merrigan said yesterday that talks had dragged on for 18 months. The unions had offered to take part in a new joint review of the analog pay rates with the employers, but both the HSEA and the Local Government Management Services Board, which represents the local authorities, had refused.
"SIPTU is supporting its craftworker members as well as its general operatives," Mr Merrigan said. He was surprised there had been no attempt to avert the dispute.
The Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court are monitoring the situation. But both have intervened unsuccessfully in the past and will be reluctant to do so again without firm grounds for believing a settlement is possible.
One complicating factor is the Garda pay dispute. The Garda Representative Association conference takes place next week. Any pay concessions to the craftworkers which exceeds the terms of the national agreements will send the wrong signal to the GRA, as far as the Department of Finance is concerned.
It is almost certain there will be third-party intervention in the analog dispute before Monday. But the issues are complex and it is difficult to see them being resolved before Monday's 8 a.m. deadline.