Vice President
Brendan Hayes was elected as Vice President of SIPTU in February 2004 after over thirty years' experience as a Union official having served as a Regional Secretary in Dublin since 1990 and as a Branch Secretary in the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland before the merger with the former ITGWU which created SIPTU.
In addition to his extensive industrial relations experience, Brendan also managed the computerisation of SIPTU’s Branch network and maintains a keen interest in technological issues. He was a trade union nominee on the highly effective Government Task Force on the Long Term Unemployed and on the Public Service Pensions Commission. He has also been involved in negotiating public service pay within the framework of successive national agreements.
Brendan played a leading role in the eight-year campaign to secure improved pension entitlements for low-paid public servants and has been active on a similar campaign for private sector workers.
Brendan served as Secretary of the Union’s Gender Equity Committee – established by the National Executive Council to increase women’s participation in SIPTU. The Committee’s recommendation formed the basis of changes in the Union’s Rules.
A member of the Labour Party since his student days, he was one of the minority of Labour members who campaigned - as did the Workers' Union of Ireland - for entry into what was then the European Economic Community in 1973.
Born in 1953, he is married to Anne with three children.
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