ESB workers will be asked to vote to go on strike next month as the State company's unions step up their campaign to halt the closure of four power plants.
The unions representing the ESB's 7,000-plus workers met yesterday to discuss the plans to close the plants in Cork, Dublin, Kerry and Wexford, which employ 350 staff.
Following the meeting, Brendan Ogle of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) said the unions agreed to ballot members for industrial action in September. Mr Ogle said the industrial action would, if necessary, include stoppages and strikes.
Unions have to hold secret ballots of their members before taking any industrial action. A vote gives them a mandate to strike and take other action, but does not necessarily mean that this will happen straight away.
As part of a deal with the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER), the ESB has to close the four stations in return for being allowed to build a new plant in Cork at a cost of €400 million.
The CER wants the closures as it is seeking to reduce the ESB's presence in the market and open it up to competition.
The plants are due to close in 2009 and 2010, but the unions say the company has effectively gone ahead with the closures without their agreement.
Mr Ogle said yesterday that one unit in Poolbeg in Dublin has already gone, while the ESB has dropped plans to upgrade a second unit.
"The ESB unions have agreed to a lot of very difficult changes over the years, including plant closures, but the way we have done it is to sit down with management and hammer out an agreement. They are doing this without any agreement."
The ESB's position is that the plants have to close, and have in any case reached the end of their useful lives.
