This chapter provides an overview of the national institutional context and state policies in promoting voluntary workplace partnership in the Republic of Ireland. Workplace partnership is distinct from national-level social pacts in that in the former, it is claimed by advocates that participants actively engage in social dialogue leading to more informed decision- making for the good of all stakeholders at organizational level. In contrast, social partnership at national level comprised consensus-seeking pacts between government, employers and trade unions, whereby the parties engaged in centralised bargaining over key macroeconomic and social issues. Ireland has promoted national-level social partnership from 1987 until its collapse in 2009, with a distinct objective of diff using collaborative partnership to enterprise level. The two levels-national and workplace-are not mutually exclusive and interlink in important ways. National policy and institutions shape the context in which workplace-level cooperative arrangements are enacted and played out. Tripartite bargained consensus at a national level-involving government, employers and unions as the major ‘partners’-was seen as a precursor to the effi cacy of workplace-level partnerships.
CITATION STYLE
Dobbins, T., & Dundon, T. (2016). Workplace partnership in Ireland: Irreconcilable tensions between an ‘Irish third way’ of voluntary mutuality and neoliberalism. In Developing Positive Employment Relations: International Experiences of Labour Management Partnership (pp. 101–123). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-42772-4_5
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