Why are we asking this question now?

Over the last six months the industrial temperature has been rising at an unprecedented rate. Action is threatened across the entire health service, Aer Lingus has just dodged a bullet (but for how long? ) while the unions have been muttering about how rampant inflation may require a renegotiation of the pay terms of the national agreement - just six months after it was signed.

Last month, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions - the umbrella body for Irish trade unions - did something it hasn't done for years. It issued an 'all-out' picket in support of the workers in Dublin port, who claimed they were forced to operate tug boats without the necessary training or health and safety protections.

An Ictu all-out is the union equivalent of the nuclear threat. It requires all union members to refuse to have anything to do with a company who is in dispute.

In the 1970s and 1980s Ictu all-outs were issued like confetti. A smallscale strike by craft workers would spread rapidly with the constant threat of a national strike. But the national partnership agreements in 1988 - designed and built by the unions, employers and taoiseach Bertie Ahern (then minister for labour) - put a stop to all that.

But after nearly 20 years is partnership starting to wear thin?

Senior union and employers representatives have noted in the last few months how the partnership agreement - which contains a ban on industrial action - appears powerless to resolve growing industrial unrest. This is most evident in the case of the nurses whose action is targeted not just at the health service, but directly at the partnership process that Bertie Ahern holds so dear.

The nursing unions have quit partnership, claiming that its generic nature cannot handle the specific concerns of the nursing profession. Like the teachers six years ago, they are off on a solo run.

This has not gone down well with the rest of the unions. They say that, as a member of Ictu, the nursing unions are duty-bound to accept the 2:1 majority decision of all Ictu unions last September to accept the national agreement, Towards 2016. This is the trade-union equivalent of the government's collective cabinet responsibility.

Now the country's unions are telling the government that if they crumble to the nurses, then they too will walk away from partnership.

Why now?

Because there will be an election in May or June. The nurses' action is targeted directly at nervous Fianna F�il backbenchers who in turn have heaped pressure on the government.

But so far, health minister Mary Harney and the taoiseach are more concerned about the consequences throughout the entire public sector if the nurses get their way. Unseemly as a pay fight with the 'angels of mercy' is in the run up to a general election, a fullscale war with garda�, teachers and civil servants would be worse.

Are Aer Lingus workers also turning on partnership?

The dispute involving 1,800 Siptu members in Aer Lingus is different in that the union is not threatening action over the pay terms of the national partnership agreement.

Rather they are threatening action over the company's decision to introduce inferior conditions for serving staff without agreement.

Also, the decision last week by both the company and Siptu to hold their fire while the Labour Court investigates the dispute has calmed the situation.

However, the national partnership agreement contained safeguards against the sale of state companies. And while the government has gone through that sale process now, there is a growing feeling among Aer Lingus workers that the government sold the workers a pup and the partnership agreement could do little to prevent that happening.

Has anybody else quit partnership?

Yes. Mandate, which represents around 40,000 relatively low-paid shop workers, stunned Ictu when it quit the partnership process claiming that such national pay agreements were of no use to low-paid workers. But unlike the nurses, Mandate has pursued the big retailers such as Tesco and Boots without recourse to industrial action.

The shopworkers' union has had some success to date, securing a pay deal with Tesco which is around 2% above the 10% available under the national deal.

But the notion that a union can extract larger pay increases while operating outside the confines of partnership will not be lost on all the other unions.

Are the pay terms enough?

While the nurses are the most immediate industrial headache for the government, the country's most senior trade-union leaders, including Dave Begg of Ictu and Jack O'Connor of Siptu, have warned that if inflation rises any further they will be forced to renegotiate the pay deal.

The national deal provides for 10% over 27 months, or 4.6% per year. This was concluded last September after almost 12 months of painstaking negotiations. At the time, the cost of living was running at 4% so the 4.6% deal was considered the best that could be got.

But with the ink barely dry on the deal, gas, electricity and health costs pushed inflation up. Last month, when it hit 4.9%, Jack O'Connor admitted that partnership had "hit a rocky patch". Dave Begg of Ictu said that while he expected prices to tail off later in the year, he warned that if it nudged towards 6% then "we [the unions] would be in difficulty".

Almost on cue, inflation soared to 5.2% last month and the unions believe worker pressure will force them back to the table to seek a top-up payment. The employers will strongly resist this, arguing that the marriage of employers, unions and government is 'for better or for worse' and is not something you can dip in and out of.

Will it hold this side of the election?

Union leaders in particular have too much invested in the partnership process to hold their union-friendly taoiseach to ransom as he attempts to land a third historic term in office.

But this month sees the start of the trade union conference season, when the ordinary members get their three minutes to shout from a brightly-lit platform.

If the senior trade unionists are reticent about using the election as leverage against Ahern, the nurses have no such qualms.