The president of Ireland's largest public sector union, IMPACT, has accused employers of reaching 'new standards of double standards' in calling for wage restraint for workers while top people's pay is soaring.
Finbarr O'Driscoll called on business leaders to show some glimmer of understanding of the rage and frustration felt by ordinary people - particularly when top earners award themselves huge pay increases while telling the little people to tighten their belts.
Speaking at the opening of the union's biennial delegate conference in Kilkenny, he said unions needed to see evidence that employers still see partnership as a two-way street where all the parties make gains and sacrifices.
He claimed that in recent months, they had witnessed what he called emboldened employers determined to row back on the rights, pensions and living standards of working people.
He accused employers of seeking to cut living standards with below-inflation pay rises, even as they awarded themselves big increases in their already huge salaries.
He said that in the current national pay talks, unions needed increases that matched the rate of inflation simply to maintain living standards.
Mr O'Driscoll said that most of the lectures on partnership and performance given to trade unions ahead of the national pay talks came from those who had done exceptionally well out of boardroom pay hikes or the report of the review body on top -level pay in the public sector.
Mr O'Driscoll accused profitable banks of increasing interest rates and leaving hardworking young couples to pay for the mess in the international money markets.
He also slated retailers who hiked up prices for years on the basis of the high cost of sterling but who refused to reduce them when the value of that currency fell.
