High inflation will influence Congress position in wage talks
13 Dec 2007
Congress today (December 13) expressed serious disappointment with new inflation figures, which show an increase to 5 percent for November and said it was seriously concerned at the fact that while most official forecasters still predict a fall in inflation, Irish price levels are already 22 percent above the EU 25 average.
Reacting to this latest rise Paul Sweeney, Congress Economic Advisor said: "We have already pointed out that the recent pay increases for politicians' and top public servants were benchmarked against the bottom quartile of the remuneration packages of top executives in the private sector. It also excluded the packages of those in the big PLCs, which are even more stratospheric! This demonstrates clearly that the heads of private sector companies are awarding themselves extraordinarily high benefit packages, while attempting to drive down labour costs, especially for the lower paid.
"In contrast, average earnings for many workers have not risen in real terms in 2007 because of the high inflation in Ireland. The failure to increase the tax rates and credits in line with wage inflation in the recent Budget will mean a reduction in earnings next year for most workers, unless there is a substantial rise under the next round of Towards 2016."
Mr Sweeney said the shift in income distribution from wages to profits and from the lowest paid to the highest, cannot be allowed to continue.