At today’s Irish Congress of Trade Unions Executive Committee meeting, Owen Reidy, the outgoing Assistant General Secretary was ratified as the new General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions following Patricia King, after she stepped down from the post this month.
Reidy, a father of two and a native of Donegal has 24 years full-time experience in the Irish trade union movement. He started his career as a union official in SIPTU in the west of Ireland and occupied a range of roles in the union representing and organising workers in the aviation, insurance, and finance, non-commercial semi-states, and cleaning and security sectors. He was appointed one of SIPTU’s 5 Divisional Organisers in 2013 when he managed and ran the unions Transport, Energy, Aviation and Construction Division. During this time he was involved in a number of high-profile and successful industrial disputes including the Greyhound lockout, the Luas dispute, and pay disputes in the CIE transport companies.
In 2016 Mr Reidy took up the position of Assistant General Secretary of the ICTU with primary responsibility for trade union movement in Northern Ireland. He has coordinated the work and voice of the trade union movement in NI in response to Brexit, NI Executive political stalemate, and the current cost of living crisis. Reidy came through a competitive interview process to be selected as the new General Secretary.
Commenting on his appointment Reidy said,
I am delighted and humbled to be selected for this important leadership role in our trade union movement. I want to pay tribute to my friend, colleague and mentor Patricia King, for her work and the valuable legacy she has left us all in her work both in SIPTU and as General Secretary of our Congress. I think we have the potential to rebuild and grow our movement and reach out to workers currently not organised in trade unions. We need to make work pay for all and build a more inclusive economy and society.
Our number one priority in the Republic of Ireland must be to transpose the recent Adequate Minimum Wages directive which has a transformative potential when it comes to collective bargaining in Ireland and to legislate for the LEEF High-Level Group report on collective bargaining in Ireland. Earlier this month, NIC-ICTU launched its Northern Ireland campaign for action on the cost of living and for a new Employment Act to improve collective bargaining coverage among other means of delivering better wages and conditions for all working people.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in a collective leadership to strengthen collective bargaining, to grow our movement, and to improve worker voice in both jurisdictions in our society and economy
ICTU President Kevin Callinan said
With Irish and European collective bargaining structures set to be overhauled, we are entering an exciting new phase for the trade union movement. As General Secretary, Owen Reidy will bring fresh energy to the task of ensuring that these changes happen in a way that produces real improvements in the pay and conditions of workers. In his previous roles with SIPTU and as the lead Congress official for Northern Ireland, he has shown that he has the qualities to unite the movement in pursuit of such core objectives.
