The State faces the risk of electricity blackouts in the new year if a meeting of the ESB's unions on Thursday decides to ballot for industrial action after Christmas.
Unions representing its 8,000 workers want to negotiate a partnership deal with the Government and the company to replace one which is due to expire in 2004. Mr Paddy Reilly, secretary of the ESB group of unions, told The Irish Times yesterday that the company was willing to discuss the issue, but said the Government and the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources were not.
Mr Reilly said unions planned to meet next Thursday, December 18th, to discuss how to proceed with their claim and to consider the possibility of taking industrial action if they do not get a commitment from the Department that it will enter talks.
"We may at that meeting take a decision to ballot our members early in the new year for industrial action," he said.
Workers could be asked to vote on a motion for industrial action up to and including strike action. A strike could result in parts of the system shutting down, which would inevitably lead to power shortages and power cuts.
A spokesman for the Minister for Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, said he had received correspondence from the unions and was currently considering it.
A spokesman for the ESB said last night that the company wanted to continue to remain in active partnership with its workforce. "It is something we will discuss with the unions," he said.
The unions want a new deal settled before phase two of the current national pay deal begins in the middle of next year. They are seeking to have the workers' current 5 per cent share in the company increased by 14.9 per cent, and said that workers would pay for the stake.
ESB employees are not entitled to benchmarking, but Mr Reilly argued yesterday that civil servants were getting up to 18.5 per cent pay rises in return for "nothing" while his members had delivered big productivity increases. "We believe that we are entitled to another agreement," he said.
Mr Reilly stressed that a new partnership deal could include a combination of pay, share ownership and profit-sharing. However, he indicated that the unions were seeking parity with the controversial benchmarking deal, which is ultimately set to cost the taxpayer €20 billion.
Under the current partnership, the Programme for Achieving Competitiveness and Transformation (PACT), workers got pay rises totalling 13 per cent, a lump sum of 3 per cent and profit-sharing.
Mr Reilly and the ESB's spokesman said the State company made annual savings of €87 million as a result.
