I am aware of the survey referred to by the Deputy. This survey was undertaken to assess not only workers' experience of, but their attitude to, national social partnership agreements.
I am encouraged by the indication from the study of members of the particular union involved, that the majority of those surveyed view the framing of a new national agreement positively.
Regarding the extent of partnership in the workplace, there are signs from a number of sources that partnership agreements are increasingly found in Irish workplaces. At a recent conference organised by SIPTU it was stated that 63,000 of that union's membership were covered by an agreement on employee participation. A recent IBEC survey indicated that 44% of the companies surveyed had jointly created partnership initiatives with their unions.
Modern enterprises face a number of challenges to maintain competitiveness in the rapidly changing global economy. The development of partnership initiatives facilitates the understanding by both employers and employees of these challenges and enables them to work together in a non adversarial manner to meet them.
The development of partnership at enterprise level is an evolving process. Chapter 9 of Partnership 2000 states "The National Framework for Partnership for Competitive Enterprises does not attempt to impose any single structure or model of partnership. There is a need to tailor the approach to fit different employment settings." Partnership at enterprise level can and should take many forms. It is to be anticipated that the emergence of partnership will occur gradually.
The National Centre for Partnership established under the current national agreement, Partnership 2000, is working to facilitate the establishment of partnership agreements in enterprises, both in the private and public sectors. This work underlines the commitment of the Government and the social partners to the extension of partnership in the workplace.
