Mandate Trade Union Motion at the 2013 ICTU Biennial Delegate Conference

Wednesday 3 July 2013

“Conference acknowledges with deep concern the increasing issue of precarious work, combining very high levels of flexibility with very low levels of security, as a growing phenomenon in Ireland and the fact that precarious work has received little attention in Irish policy making.

Mandate’s B&A study ‘Decent Work? The Impact of the Recession on Low Paid Workers’ outlined in stark reality the devastating impact precarious work is having on certain groups of workers with women, young people and migrant workers all over represented in the “precariat” of increasingly under-employed workers. Ireland is suffering a severe labour market crisis with unemployment and emigration spiralling.

To counteract this spiral job creation is a key imperative if Ireland is to recover from recession; however, it is equally important that jobs provide decent work where workers have a reasonable level of economic independence.

Conference calls on the incoming Congress Executive to initiate a comprehensive campaign for “Decent Work” to include campaigning for effective comprehensive Government policies across a range of government departments.

Conference further seeks to build a co-ordinated and coherent multi-union strategy across the public and private sectors on all matters related to precarious work with a clear campaign focus on increasing membership density and deepening trade union organisation and cooperation with the projected aim of the combined union movement playing a vital role in the fight for decent work and a better future for all workers in both the public and private sectors.”