I'm a member of the
Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU). It's the largest union in Ireland (about 1/3 of all unionised workers are in SIPTU) and a general workers' union. Its historical origins lie in the Irish Transport & General Workers' Union which was a militant trade union in the early part of the century but moved to the right over the years.
The Union has for the past 20 years been in Social Partnership with the bosses and the leadership is currently in a new round of wage talks. With Ireland likely to be significantly affected by a US recession, IBEC, the employers' federation as well as the government have been constantly talking about realistic increases and the need for workers to tighten their belts, while government ministers and senior civil servants have been rewarded substantial pay increases. Obviously this has caused a level of resentment and the union leadership have had to make some noise about people receiving decent pay increases, considering the rate of inflation and cost of living in Ireland but their whole platform these days is based around Social Partnership so they'll eventually sell-out. At this point, it would be more likely that the employers would break with Partnership rather than the Unions.