Fórsa has contributed a submission to the government’s public consultation on the first National Public Procurement Strategy for Ireland. 

The union’s submission focuses on ensuring all public procurement is socially responsible, through the inclusion of mandatory selection and award criteria that would ensure workers can access collective bargaining through their trade unions.  

Fórsa argued that public procurement rules must ensure that employers bidding for, or in receipt of public funds, recognise trade unions for collective bargaining purposes, engage in good faith when such engagement is initiated and have a union-negotiated collective agreement in place to receive public funds. 

Government and state bodies have strong purchasing power which should be leveraged to improve living standards for workers.  

Furthermore, the submission highlights the government’s ambition to increase collective bargaining coverage across the Irish labour market, in line with the objectives of the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages.  

Fórsa’s research and policy officer Aisling Cusack explained that introducing regulations that require a union-negotiated collective agreement as a prerequisite for eligibility for public procurement would help advance that ambition. 

She said: “Workers’ rights and access to collective bargaining should be at the centre of Ireland’s public procurement policy. The development of a new national strategy presents a timely opportunity for the state to get behind workers and promote fair pay and decent working conditions for all workers.” 

“The government must move away from an approach to public procurement that focuses solely on cost.  This approach, to what is effectively an outsourcing of public work, only fuels a race to the bottom, rewarding companies with the lowest bids, often at the expense of workers’ rights and union recognition.” 

Aisling concluded: “There is an onus on the government to ensure that companies awarded state contracts act in the public interest, by ensuring that they respect workers’ rights, recognise trade unions for collective bargaining, and have a union-negotiated agreement in place.” 

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