Private sector unions seek pay increases worth around €1,000 a year to workers

You could have more money in your pocket come 2017.

Private sector unions will seek pay increases of approximately 4% from the start of next year. According to the Irish Times, a recommendation was made to seek the increase, based on economic analysis, by the private sector committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to its affiliated unions on Tuesday morning. Chairman of the committee, John Douglas, said that private sector unions believed the increases to be “fully justified” given stagnation in wages since 2010 and that such an increase, if implemented, would be worth approximately €1,000 a year for most workers. “The economy is beginning to grow again,” Douglas is quoted as saying in The Irish Times. “The economic indicators would suggest that inflation will be running at in or around two per cent, worker productivity will be over one and a half per cent so we feel fully justified right across the economy in seeking pay increases in the region of four per cent.” Douglas indicated a willingness to enter into discussions with employers that couldn’t afford a four per cent increase to employees, but that they would have decisions to make regarding employers that could afford an increase but would be unwilling to do so.