Ireland: unions maintain pressure to enforce the wage agreement

Wage cut. Today, Tuesday, October 20, 2009, the Irish government will meet with the social partners for an informal meeting. The revival of negotiations on the national social pact for 2016 (see our dispatch No. 06855) is far from being certain, because the parties’ stands hardly changed since talks were suspended in June. On the one hand, the government is grappling with a delicate budget equation for 2010, while Ireland is the country worst hit by the economic crisis in Europe. After unilaterally terminating the national transition wage agreement signed in late 2008 (see our dispatch No. 080717), therefore freezing wages in the public sector, the Irish Economic and Social Council pushes Dublin to go even further by reducing nominal wages for all public sector workers in the country.