III. The positions of the social partners on flexibility
A. Introduction
The Irish system of industrial relations has undergone significant change in recent years. While the system is still recognizable as adversarial and voluntarist there have been major changes which have modified this system. The most important change has undoubtedly been the negotiation of a series of four national wage agreements since 1987. Although they lack the strong political dimension associated with the standard Scandinavian model of neo-corporatism of the 1950s to the 1970s, these wage agreements are recognizable as conforming to a neo-corporatist, or social partnership model. The agreements, mediated by government, involve political trade-offs between capital and labour at the level of the peak organizations. In relation to legal developments the most significant changes have been made to individual employment law. The voluntarist system has undergone major change since 1967, with voluntarism being replaced by legal regulation based on the principle of establishing a "floor of rights" for employees. This runs counter to the traditional common law system which conferred few rights on employees and viewed the employment relationship as one of master and servant. These issues are explored further in Part IV.
It has been suggested that Ireland now has a European model of industrial relations. Such assertions lack conviction, not least because it is very difficult to identify a homogenous and unchanging "European model", but also because the Irish employment law system merely establishes a floor of rights (von Prondzynski, and McCarthy, 1982) and collective labour law is based on the notion of immunities and not on a system of rights as is common in Europe. These reservations aside, the recent changes in Irish industrial relations have been significant and the State has played a major role in bringing about these changes.