In Corporate Ireland all the rage is Partnership. Breaking agreements, forcing strikes and staff lockouts aren't what they had in mind.
Oh, I beg to differ. Partnership is well dead and buried - "partnership" in any case involved the buying off of the Public service Unions by the government for many years, and paying back PAYE workers in tax breaks. Tax breaks are dead as they don't have the money, and Bertie doesn't give a monkeys any more as he's a dead duck on his last term - his "performance" in the tribunal and telling us to tighten our belts a week or so after getting a pay rise more than the average national wage are proof enough of that.
List off all the current "disputes" and you get either ex-public service or public service unions kicking off to protect the unreal terms they have been allowed over the years - cancelling surgery because a bunch of tw*ts in an electrical union want to be paid a king's ransom to be on call to change a lightbulb is where it's all at. Or busdrivers crippling the Nortsoide as there is only one location at which they will take their break. Is this "management escalation"? I ask you, is it because management have escalated in those cases, or the cosseted unions can see a train piling down the tunnel at them?
In any case - do EI workers really want to be associated with all that, rightly or wrongly? I haven't seen any Public Servant electricians or bus drivers having to take pain for recent years in order to keep their employer from going belly-up? EI management may be taking advantage and "escalating", but the real world always lurks around the corner ready to bite you on the ass, EI workers don't need to be reminded.