Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
The cost of living and the impact it's having on workers will be discussed at a meeting between unions and government today. The Taoiseach will be talking to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and employer groups, including IBEC. Joining me now to tell me what's expected to happen today is Ic du General Secretary, Eoin Reedy. Eoin, you're very welcome to the Clareburn programme.
Can you tell me why you have called this meeting and what it is you hope to achieve today?
Good morning, Ciara. Nice to be with you.
Chapter 2: What impact does the cost of living have on workers?
Yeah, I mean, the Labour Employer Economic Forum meets usually about four times a year. But with everything that went on in the last two weeks and with the illegal war in the Middle East and its consequences for everybody in the world, particularly in the Western world, we engaged with government and said, look, it's timely that we have a discussion about this.
This was before the protests and the blockades. And I think the protests and the blockades of the last kind of 10 days have just highlighted how important it is to engage. Because, you know, long before Donald Trump's latest misadventure in the Middle East, many workers, not all, but many, many workers in this country have been struggling with the cost of living prices. And it's only got worse.
But for us, I suppose the events of the last week or so have been a kind of a seismic shift whereby the government has demonstrated by their behavior. And they're not responsible for the crisis Trump is, but they're responsible for the policy decisions they choose to address the crisis. And I think the government's behavior last week essentially says might is right.
And I think they have taken industrial peace from trade unions for the last number of years, maybe a little bit too much for granted. So we have a suite of policies that we want to address with government to address the cost of living for workers.
And we hope they'll engage with us on that if they, for whatever reason, choose not to and decide that, you know, we'll just engage with hospitality and the farmers and the hauliers who represent in total about 12 percent of the working population at most.
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Chapter 3: Why is the meeting between unions and government significant?
Well, then unions will have to resort to higher pay demands in the workplace across the public and private sector and crucially, the very heavily organised commercial semi-state sector, transport, aviation, energy, those areas.
So there's been a seismic shift, you say, off the back of what happened in the last week. In what way? Does the protests and indeed the package, the 500 million package that was handed down in response to that, changed or influenced your thinking in the way that you will approach negotiations with government?
Well, I give you an analogy. If we had a strike, a legal strike, as we can do in Dublin Airport, for example. in a particular company, I won't mention any companies, obviously, because I don't want anyone to think there's a pending strike anywhere in Dublin Airport at the moment, and there isn't.
But if we did have a particular strike, a legal strike in Dublin Airport, having served the required notice, imagine if the workers involved decided they were going to block access to the airport, block the roundabout on the M50, block the M1. I could tell you what would happen. Within an hour, the guards would be there and those workers would be arrested.
And within two hours, the union's general secretary would be written to and be told, we're going to injunk this protest, illegal blockade in the High Court, and we're going to sequester your funds. What happened when the farmers and the small businesses people did it? Nothing for a week.
Now that strikes huge double standards and the message I've been getting from unions and from workers in the last week is it seems might is right here and we maybe need to sharpen our spears a little bit more and that maybe the government have taken industrial peace over the last number of years for granted.
But there are certain approaches, there are certain rules around engagement in the past between the unions and the government. What's happened to those rules?
Those rules are still there. They're laws and we honour them. The point I'm making is there are laws that unions and workers have to go through. We have to ballot, we have to serve seven days notice. If we don't do that, we can be injuncted. But my point is it seems self-employed people and small business people seem to be able to do what they want. That's not acceptable in a republic.
There cannot be a hierarchy of rights here for PAYE workers and for small businesses. And we think this government has indulged small businesses too much in the last number of years, whether it's the giveaway to the hospitality sector and now the 750 million, not all of which is going to the farmers and the hauliers. I accept that.
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