Pickets will again be placed today by the trade union Unite on a school building site in west Dublin in a dispute over alleged under-payment of workers.

Unite said its members working at the JJ Rhatigan construction site at Kishoge Community College in Lucan, Co Dublin, had unanimously voted last week to take industrial action, up to and including strike action and placing pickets, at all locations where JJ Rhatigan & Company carried out its business.

The union has maintained that under a system of sub-contracting, some workers at the site were earning less than €5 per hour. This has been denied by JJ Rhatigan.

Unite Regional Officer Tom Fitzgerald said yesterday his members had no choice but to take industrial action.

“It is now five weeks since the workers were last paid, and they have now been locked out of their jobs after asserting their rights.

“Unite is also calling on the Department of Education to review its compliance mechanisms to ensure that the workers building our children’s schools are decently treated.”