Union recognition and partnership at work: a new legitimacy for Irish trade unions?

Abstract

In the Irish context of national partnership and the promotion of workplace partnership at firm level, unions might be expected to have achieved, at least, a pragmatic acceptance by employers. Using a survey of full-time union officials in eight trade unions organising in the private sector, this paper reports their experiences of recent recognition campaigns. Employer opposition appears to have intensified, and in a substantial percentage of cases has involved the victimisation of activists. In facilitating employees to make a free choice regarding union representation, the Codes of Practice and the Industrial Relations Amendment Act 2001 are regarded by the majority of officials as inadequate. A majority of officials favoured the introduction of a statutory right to recognition. Non-union firms appear as ‘free riders’ that have enjoyed the benefits of national partnership but evaded the compromises and concessions that necessarily characterise such agreements. If left unchecked, the free-rider phenomenon could undermine the institutional framework on which partnership is based.