IBEC says it considers talks on a new national pay agreement will be the most difficult since the process started in 1987.
Director Brendan McGinty said the organisation was committed to partnership as the best way to meet the needs of the country and counteract the many threats to economic competitiveness.
He said they would explore fully the potential for an agreement that safeguards jobs and investment but not at any price.
The talks involving the employer and business body are due to start on Thursday.
Mr McGinty criticised ICTU General Secretary David Begg for focussing on what he said was the remuneration of a relatively small number of chief executives to argue for inflationary pay increases for workers.
He added that this demonstrated the blatant weakness of the ICTU case.
Mr Begg earlier warned that the trade unions will not accept a modest wage increase at the national pay talks.
Mr Begg said that congress has become pre-occupied with the large gap that has opened up between high earners and ordinary workers in recent years.
RTÉ's Economics Editor George Lee says the exhortations from all quarters for the trade unions to restrain their pay demands cut no ice with the unions because so many of the 'higher-ups' in Irish society have done well out of the boom, and the pay gap between ordinary workers and their bosses has become enormous.
ICTU 'forced' to adopt defensive stance
Launching an economic policy document in advance of the pay talks today, Mr Begg said that inflation is expected to remain high and that workers will need to be compensated for that as well as for improvements in productivity.
Mr Begg also said that ICTU has been forced to adopt a defensive strategy in relation to the pay talks in order to ensure that gains made by workers in recent years do not unravel.
In particular he said that the issue of pensions provisions was back on the agenda.
He said he believed that a new State-based mandatory pensions scheme linked to workers' incomes is now needed to ensure adequate protection for ordinary workers in retirement.
The General Secretary also said that congress was particularly concerned about the erosion of workers' rights though the exploitation of agency workers. The use of such workers can enable employers to undermine employee conditions as well enabling employers to by-pass discrimination legislation, according to ICTU.
Mr Begg said that this must be tackled in the social partnership pay negotiations.
He added that congress would be seeking changes to industrial relations law that would enshrine the legal basis for collective bargaining, which he said has been undermined by recent High Court decisions in relation to Ryanair and the Irish Hotels Federation.
