Congress Backs New Deal
17 Nov 2008
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions today (November 17) voted overwhelmingly in favour of accepting the new national deal on pay and employment rights, Towards 2016, Review & Transitional Agreement.
At a specially-convened conference in Dublin's Liberty Hall delegates representing all Congress affiliates voted 305 in favour of accepting the deal, to 36 against. Congress represents some 620,000 workers in the Republic of Ireland, the majority of whom (almost 60 percent) work in the private sector.
The new national deal provides for a six percent increase over 21 months, with a pay pause of three months applying in the private sector and an 11 month pause in the public sector.
The deal also contains important measures to combat exploitation and strengthen employment rights: a ban on the use of agency workers to replace striking workers; a change to competition law to allow freelance journalists and session musicians to bargain collectively; a commitment to restore the spirit of the 2001 and 2004 Industrial Relations' Acts (following the Supreme Court judgement in the Ryanair case, in 2005) along with new measures to ban the victimisation of trade union activists and organisers.
Welcoming the formal ratification of the deal Congress General Secretary David Begg said it was now imperative that government "deliver in full" on the key employment rights commitments and provisions that it contained.