It's 20 years since print workers in Ireland, members of the then National Graphical Association (now AMICUS Graphical Paper & Media sector), embarked on any type of widespread industrial action across the provincial printing and newspaper industry. The issue back then was pay, now its pensions.

The IMPA have told the union they want to pull out of the pension fund. The pension scheme, established in 1969, is a final salary arrangement funded jointly by printers and bosses as part of the union-employer agreement on pay, conditions, work practices and new technology. The bosses say it has become too expensive to maintain and they want out, pointing the union and the workers to the less beneficial "yellow pack" Personal Retirement Saving Accounts (PRSAs).

In 2005 the industry has become so profitable and cash rich that names like Scottish Radio Holdings, Dunfermiline Press, The Irish Examiner and Independent News & Media are now either dominating or attempting to buy up the entire provincial newspaper & printing industry.

The lessons of the victorious 1985 "guerrilla war" have not been lost on the printers and the mood this time is reinforced by a Celtic Tiger that extracted greater productivity, wholesale new technology concessions and 'voluntary' redundancies from them. In return, a low pay partnership process and even in some cases the discontinuance of Christmas, Long Service and Pagination (page number) bonuses became the new industry standard. Now, even their pension scheme is a "legitimate target".

The AMICUS Graphical Paper & Media sector boss in Ireland Eddie Kirkpatrick wrote to the union members involved and told them "should they (the IMPA) close the pension scheme an industrial dispute would be inevitable".

In 1985 we successfully fought and won an 8% pay rise - now we need to fight again.