SIPTU PRESIDENT JACK O’Connor says that the union will pursue a “sharp rise” in the minimum wage and 5% wage increases across the board in the coming months.
In a speech at Glasnevin Cemetery today to mark the commemoration of the death of Jim Larkin in 1947, the SIPTU president will say that the union would engage in a “in a new battle to establish a minimum living wage of €11.45 an hour across all those sectors of the economy where the gross exploitation of vulnerable workers is the order of the day.”
He added that SIPTU members will also engage in “a national campaign to apply pressure on the Government to commence the task of abolishing the Universal Social Charge and replacing it with a new mechanism which will be equally efficient as a means of raising revenue from the better off while removing the burden on those on low to middle incomes.”
He called for a new ‘concordat’ between labour and capital which would replicate the great post war settlement.
O’Connor also called on Irish social democrats, left republicans and independent socialists to set aside “sectarian divisions” and to “develop a political project aimed at winning the next General Election on a common platform, let’s call it ‘Charter 2016’.”
He said that it must set out what an alternative left of centre government “would be for as distinct to what we are against.”
Cost jobs
Retailers, however warn the move would cost jobs.
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