By Wednesday evening, we should have a good idea of the prospects for a successor to Partnership 2000. That is the day delegates to SIPTU's biennial conference in Killarney will discuss industrial developments since the last conference two years ago. The nurses' dispute and political and financial scandals will provide the backdrop to the debate and are likely to inflame rather than inform it.
When the Partnership 2000 deal was sold to members in January 1997, it was on the basis that it would allow for "a qualitative shift in the nature of relationships between employers and workers".
In fact, it has led to record tax cuts of £3 billion and major initiatives in tackling social exclusion through education, health, social welfare and labour market initiatives. However, by their nature, these benefits take time to trickle through the system and they are more than matched by rising expectations. More fundamental to the assessment most trade unionists will make of Partnership 2000, is how they fared on pay.
All but a few employers have paid the full terms of the agreement, which will have a cumulative value of 9.65 per cent by next March. In a significant minority of employments, substantial additional increases have been won through some form of gain sharing. These range from 3 per cent to 20.5 per cent at plant level, as well as new or improved pension schemes, reductions in the working week, better health insurance cover and compensation for change.
The union has also carried out the most intensive consultative process of any trade union in the history of the State over the past few months. Details of this will be made available to delegates on Wednesday. It is no secret that while it will show considerable disenchantment over the way benefits from the economic boom have been shared, there is little support for abandoning social partnership altogether.
The survey results are expected to show about 35 per cent of members want a return to some form of local pay bargaining and only 11 per cent prefer to stick with centralised agreements. However, 57 per cent are expected to opt for a combination of local and central pay bargaining.
The general secretary, Mr John McDonnell, says the time has come when "the issue of partnership will have to be decided in its own right" rather than as a simple add-on to a pay deal. As the senior union officer responsible for the union's funds, he will also be mindful of the cost of industrial strife.
If the nurses' dispute culminates in strike action on October 19th, the cost to the union could be more than £400,000 a week. That would put a strain even on SIPTU's £10 million war chest.
It is, however, the union's vice-president, Mr Des Geraghty, who faces the stiffest challenge this year when he seeks to put forward a pay strategy that will seek to maximise on the political embarrassment of the Government and employers over recent scandals, while not allowing wildcat industrial action to overtake the union.
He sees the union's recent call for a further £1 billion in tax cuts in the December Budget as essential if there is to be a new agreement. He says it must be targeted at the low paid and aimed at put ting 80 per cent of wage earners on the standard rate of tax.
Unlike the white-collar union, MSF, which has put a price tag of a 26 per cent pay rise on participation in any new agreement, he is reluctant to cite hard figures at this stage. He says employers must accept the need for significant flat rate increases to help the low paid and the need to be "very innovative" at enterprise level in negotiating significant gain-sharing deals.
Mr Geraghty blames the lack of enthusiasm by employers for gain-sharing deals as one of the major problems in developing partnership. Lack of management expertise, in both the private and public sectors, is another obstacle to making partnership work.
Referring as much to the Government and employers as to trade union leaders, he says: "It would be very wrong for any of us not to recognise there is a lot of anger out there over various scandals, but when the anger dies down, we have to be able to say we have put a better system in place."