Employers have warned that future investment by multi-national companies could disappear with many job losses if they were forced to recognise unions.
IBEC director general Turlough O'Sullivan was speaking as he arrived for the second day of pay talks at Government Buildings.
Mr O'Sullivan said that employers had told anyone who would listen for some time that they could not concede anything remotely approaching statutory union recognition. He said the current position, where companies were not obliged to negotiate, with unions was 'the only competitive advantage we have'.
Mr O'Sullivan warned that if that were given away, Ireland would effectively be 'saying goodbye' to future investment in that sector. As a result, employers would not to be agreeing to anything significant in that area, he said.
But the head of ICTU's private sector committee, Jerry Shanahan, warned that better negotiating rights for unions were a deal-breaker for securing a new pay agreement.
He said Government would have to legislate to replace the negotiating processes which the Supreme Court had rendered inoperable in the Ryanair ruling.
The social partners were receiving a Department of Finance briefing on the public finances this afternoon before discussing a range of non-pay issues, including collective bargaining, pensions, agency workers and modernisation in the public sector.
