Business

Let’s move towards good

Lessons can be learned from our friends and neighbours about what good work looks like

The union Unison is sending out ballots for potential strike action
2024 was a roller-coaster year of industrial unrest, pay disputes, and cost of living pressures (Nick Ansell/PA)

I have spent some time recently reading the business reviews for 2024 and separating the good from the bad and the less than attractive.

In what was a roller-coaster year of industrial unrest, pay disputes, and cost of living pressures, there followed political interventions, a calming of tensions, and an eventual Christmas hush as 2025 was ushered in with a very mixed view on expectations of what the new year might hold.

Let’s look at some of the big issues in front of us:

  • Costs – whether it is the cost of living or the cost of doing business, or the pending reforms in the legislative national minimum wage and national insurance contributions, there now exists two cost narratives. Both are equally valid as a reason to either do or not do something about how to go about paying and the price it will extract.
  • Relationships – there is little doubt that recent disputes have put a strain on relationships, even if there were more politically housed pay disputes than traditional trade disputes in 2024. Teachers and health staff are current industrial relations bellwethers, with teachers being the most visible public face of discontent with pay.
  • Recruitment and retention – The monthly statistics on the NI labour force tell a tale and the on-going difficulties regarding getting people into work are clearly hard-wired. The policy issues that underpin the challenges surrounding the productivity conundrum and how to address the perennial levels of economic inactivity are of epic proportions and immune to mere policy tweaks.


  • An ever-decreasing policy window – 2025 will be gone in the blink of an eye and with a conveyor belt of legislative reform potentially on the cards, it will be a year of gearing up for reform in the world of employment law. As 2026 approaches thoughts will turn to the end of the political mandate and what can/cannot be done before another round of elections looms large on the horizon.

All the while, good work/fair work, or whatever the term de jour may be, remains a constant in the background and will remain so regardless of the political complexion here beyond 2027.

In Scotland and Wales, the Fair Work Conventions and Commissions have demonstrated their ability to survive changes in political administration, having a real and positive affect on long-term policy initiatives designed to deliver on the same good work principles now being espoused in Northern Ireland.

When Prime Minister Keir Starmer met British business leaders and trade unions earlier in the summer, the parties agreed to "wipe the slate clean and begin a new relationship of respect and collaboration". This was underpinned by a commitment to full and comprehensive consultation which will necessitate constructive dialogue
Mark McAllister, chief executive of the Labour Relations Agency (LRA) (PENRHYN PHOTOGRAPHY LTD)

Clearly there are lessons to be learned from our friends and neighbours about what good work looks like in the longer term, so let’s take a leaf from their book and let’s move towards good.

  • Mark McAllister is chief executive at the Labour Relations Agency for NI