Press Release

Unite representative vote to support rejection of draft national wage agreement

10 October 2008

A meeting of over 150 Unite shop stewards, workplace representatives and officials has unanimously voted to support the union leadership’s rejection of the draft National Wage Agreement.

The Union, Ireland’s second largest, has now commenced a postal ballot of its 60,000 members. The result of this will be known in early November.

“Unite went into talks with a very clear list of essential requirements for working people,’ said Jimmy Kelly, Unite Regional Secretary. ‘This draft agreement fails to deliver on pay. It virtually ignores the lowest paid. It totally ignores the right to union representation. It totally ignores the plight of the one million Irish workers who have no second tier pension provision.”

“There is a view that this agreement is the best that could have been achieved. We need to send a message that this is not the case. Workers are being asked to bear an intolerable share of the pain that economic recession brings. In return employers groups are to ‘urge’ restraint with regard to executive pay. There are no parameters on which the highest paid should be judged, no penalties for the excess that has been so apparent. Will Irish business leaders be any different to the heads of Lehman Brothers and AIG who walk away from collapse or bail out with obscene pay-offs and scant regard for the consequence of their actions? We have an opportunity to take a stand. We cannot run scared from threats of dire consequence. We have an obligation to vote no to this draft agreement and continue the fight for real rights for Irish workers and genuine as opposed to convenient use of the social partnership tagline.”