ILPC 2027

In the aftermath of the global economic crisis the economy of Ireland suffered immensely. An IMF paper (Laeven and Valencia, 2012) estimated that Ireland’s banking crisis was one of the most severe in world economic history. The bailout package was not just financial but included major reforms of labour market regulation particularly the creation of new employment rights and industrial relations bodies (Regan, 2012) and changes to wage setting mechanisms in key economic sectors (Barnard, 2012) thereby changing the industrial relations regulatory scene and the ability of trade unions to effectively defend or advance the interests of their members. This paper will outline the changed industrial relations landscape of Ireland, recent developments in wage bargaining that has seen the emergence of uncoordinated pay bargaining and the return of bitter industrial disputes. It is now well known that Ireland’s famed “Celtic Tiger” era ended with the sudden and dramatic collapse of the country’s corporatist model of social partnership amidst neo-liberal pressures (McDonough and Dundon, 2010; Roche, 2011). The onslaught of a housing bubble, a banking crisis and public sector wage deficit led to the arrival of the ‘Troika’ of the ECB, IMF and EU with a programme of financial stabilisation and reform (Whelan, 2013:2). The Fianna Fail/Green party coalition government (defeated at election in early 2011) imposed a range of austerity measures during 2009–2010 in an attempt to stem the crisis. The first casualty of the crisis was the consensus corporatist approach embodied in social partnership as the government pursued unilateral policies rather than negotiated ones (Regan, 2012). Social partnership in Ireland took the form of nationally agreed pay co-ordination deals that were voluntarist in nature as unions and firms could choose whether to accept their terms (Roche 2007). Social partnership had begun in 1989 and finally collapsed in 2009 which signalled the shift from national to enterprise level collective bargaining in the private sector. Similar moves to decentralised bargaining occurred in Romania (Triff, 2014) and Greece (Koukiadaki and Kokkinoiu, 2014). However, wage bargaining in the Irish public sector continued to be conducted through a number of nationally agreed agreements which can be best be described as a process of ‘concession bargaining’. Evidence of economic recovery from 2014 onwards within Ireland has witnessed patterns of increased union militancy in both private and public sectors. Workers have sought restoration of pay and conditions or to obtain ‘catch-up’ pay for forgone potential earnings. In effect the orderly process agreed between the government and most public sector unions to phase out emergency pay legislation is being severely challenged through industrial action within the public sector from teachers, police and transport workers. In the private sector the modest pay rises of 2% that had become the norm from 2011 have been replaced by unions seeking up to 5% pay rises. The new industrial architecture put in place at the behest of the Troika is being challenged by the growth of uncoordinated enterprise level pay demands which are the result of pent-up frustration of many years of cutbacks in wages and terms and conditions.