In this issue
YOU decide!
Unions back IMPACT on gender pay gap
SNAs to ballot for action
Pensions and new entrants explained
IMPACT’s Callinan re-elected as ICTU VP
Deal on civil service specialist posts
ICTU to launch ‘Year of Enterprise’
by Bernard Harbor
 
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has pledged to launch a ‘year of enterprise’ next year. Building on the work of the trade-union supported Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI), the initiative is designed to develop trade union analysis and policy on innovation, enterprise and industrial policy.

Speaking at the ICTU biennial delegate conference in Belfast last week, IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan welcomed the contribution of multinational companies to Ireland’s economic development, but said workers were vulnerable in the face of Brexit, changing global markets and aggressive nationalist chauvinism. He said unions needed to put themselves at the centre of industrial policy debates to ensure that working people shared in the fruits of innovation and improved productivity.

“The fruits of Belfast’s first industrial revolution were not evenly spread. The fourth industrial revolution must be different. The Year of Enterprise 2018 will focus on ensuring that the new industrial strategy forms one strong thread in a tightly woven social fabric,” he said.

The ICTU Year of Enterprise would “identify areas for progress in relation to innovation, employee participation, and skills at local, regional, national and European level,” according to a motion sponsored by the ICTU Executive Committee.

In the context of Brexit, Mr Callinan said Irish unions would collaborate with sister organisations in England, Scotland, Wales and the wider EU to defend and advance European social protections. “In responding to Brexit, the new industrial strategy must take its cue from this legacy of lasting partnership.

“And it must forge new ones too with workers and employers, north and south, EU and UK. We cannot follow the emergent isolationist trend. Now is not a time to batten down the hatches or abandon ship,” he said.

LikeLike (0) | Facebook Twitter LinkedIn