National Wage Agreements: Modified Laws of the Jungle

With five months still to run, the 1978 National Wage Agreement is looking a bit tired. And neither the susspension from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions of one union - the Autoomobile Union (AGEMOU) - which, by its own proud admission has breached the agreement many times over, nor the settlement of a spate of autumn strikes are likely to give it second wind. It will be clear to the unions meeting in speccial conference on November 14 to disscuss whether or not to enter talks on a further National Agreement, that this year's has not been able to regulate wage movements comprehensively, and even clearer that it has not brought inndustrial peace.

AGEMOU's sin is that it has done more widely and more brazenly what a handful of unions have been doing elseewhere - negotiating wage rises with little or no reference to the terms of the National Wage Agreement. At a time i when so many companies are benefittting from a mini-boom it is always more difficult to make a national agreement stick. But while all the public attention is focussed on the "cowboy unions",

the names of the companies which have paid increases over and above the 8 per cent + 2 per cent of the National Wage Agreement, and without reference to the productivity or inequity clauses of the agreement, are not known.

"Strikes make news, settlements don't," said Dr. Eugene McCarthy of the Federated Union of Employers. But perhaps the FUE would not really wish that the dozen-or-more settlements which AGEMOU has reached with companies in the engineering and motor trades, and which have given the union's members anything from £4 to £12 per

week on top of the National Wage Agreement terms were publicised. The employers who paid up these sums withhout a strike include the O'Shea Group, Equipment Company of Ireland, Blackkwood Hodge, 1. Harris Ltd. (Hino), Clutch Services, Massey Ferguson and a number of garages. Only in one or two cases were the increases tied to new working arrangements. However, indiviidual employers who pay up in this way do not get called to order by their orrganisation. The FUE has to cast its mind back to the 1969 maintenance strike to recall having expelled a member for setttling out of line. The Department of Public Service remains the most influenntial member of the employers' side 'in National Wage Agreements in spite of being convicted of a breach.

AGEMOU has a blunt approach to industrial relations. "Look what we have done to a big multi-national like Fiat," they have boasted (they got inncreases of between £6 and £8, with some strings, after a seven weeks' strike they will say to smaller companies: "think what we might do to you"), it makes no sense that they should be able to get such increases through negotiaation but be debarred from taking strike action where it can't be done. For them, the strike is simply a continuation of collective bargaining by other means. And, as AGEMOU Administrative Seccretary, Charlie Mooney, insisted, they don't want the terms "unofficial" and "official" applied to their disputes; the first of these implies disapproval by the union's executive.

What the FUE presented to the Exeecutive of Congress last August, however, was a litany of strikes, unofficial and official, in which AGEMOU and the

Association of Scientific and Managerrial Staffs (ASTMS) had been involved. These two unions, said the FUE, show "very little regard for agreements." At the end of September, they tried to reeinforce their point in relation to ASTMS by refusing to negotiate with the offiicial in that union whom they blamed for the breaches of agreement. That was in negotiations aimed at ending the Lombard & Ulster strike. Eventually, they had to settle for that official plus his colleague - and the settlement, which brought a total increase of 17 per cent to over 100 banking staff, meant at least bending the National Wage Agreement. The Employer/Labour Conference, Labour Court and FUE were all involvved, along with the union.

Neither side has been insisting on the letter of the agreement. The controversial clauses about procedure for taking industrial action have been simply irrelevant. Much of the prod ucctivity dealing used to justify additional wage increases has been spurious, at best. In some cases it has merely been a commitment to paper of existing cusstom and practice - as, for instance, in the recent settlement at Kilroy Bros. a TV and toy distribution firm in the Smurfit Group. After a month-long unnofficial strike, the 40 ITGWU members, who did have the services of their branch secretary and branch president in settlement talks, received increases of £10 immediately and with £2 more to come in April 1979. The official ITGWU strike at Arigna Colleries, which has just ended after more than six months, was settled on terms which could only be accommodated under the National Agreement by a considerable stretch of the imagination. The same is likely to be true of any settlement in the current official ITGWU strike by clerical staff at J.S. Lister Ltd.

Thus do the fittest survive. The National Wage Agreement only modifies what many regard as the law of the -jungle. Some companies can afford to pay more and will do so rather than risk a strike. Some unions have sufficient respect from employers to be able to carry on as if the restrictions of Nationnal Agreements did not exist. And, as

AGEMOU sees it, some unions get diffferent treatment by the EmployerrLabour Conference from others. It took a couple of days for the E/L Conference to find AGEMOU in breach of the National Agreement and Congress and to give them the two-week ultimatum. It took the Employer/Labour Connference three weeks to issue their findding against AGEMOU and another union for their activities in British Leyland. That other union happens to be the second biggest in the country, the ATGWU.

Congress has rarely met in such good time to consider whether to seek another National Wage Agreement. Posssibly for just that reason, and in spite of the frayed edges of this year's agreeement, they will decide on November 14 to send their representatives into a New Year con calve to spend a couple of months testing the colour of the smoke. They have got used to doing things that way for eight years .•