ELECTRICIANS ARE expected to place pickets at around 240 locations around the country today as part of a strike over pay increases of around 11 per cent which they say they are due for some years.
The strike, which could involve up to 10,500 electricians, is expected to centre on construction sites and in companies where contractors are being used
High-profile construction sites that are likely to be affected include the second terminal at Dublin airport, the new stadium at Lansdowne Road and the new development at the Intel plant in Co Kildare.
Pickets could also be placed at development works being carried out at a number of hospitals in Dublin such as St James’s, Temple Street and Holles Street as well as at Glasnevin cemetery.
Contractors are likely to serve protective notice on electricians who take part in the dispute.
General secretary designate of the TEEU Eamon Devoy said last night that after the strike got under way it probably would apply to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) for an all-out picket on the sites concerned.
He said the dispute was not about a pay claim but rather about the payment of increases which were due for a number of years. The union wants to see the hourly rate increase from an existing €21.49 to €23.98.
The Electrical Contractors Association (ECA), which represents around 50 of the largest companies in the sector, has said its members cannot afford to pay the increases. It has sought a 10 per cent pay reduction.
Talks at the Labour Relations Commission involving the union and the contractors’ association broke down on Saturday. Other bodies representing electrical contractors staged a protest on Saturday and said they had been excluded from the process.
Yesterday Siptu and Unite backed the strike action. However, director general of the Construction Industry Federation Tom Parlon described it as “economic lunacy”.
Siptu general president Jack O’Connor said that if the TEEU applied for an all-out picket from Ictu it would ballot members with a strong recommendation to support the electricians.
Mr O’Connor said: “The TEEU is entirely justified in the action it is proposing and our union believes it is most regrettable that electricians in the TEEU have been forced to engage in such action by reason of the employers refusal to negotiate, despite a recommendation from the Labour Court that they should do so.”
Mr Parlon said that ECA companies were not in a position to pay an 11.3 per cent pay increase to electricians at a time of spiralling job losses in the construction industry.
“What planet are these people living on, when they think that this type of industrial bully-boy tactics, in pursuit of an 11.3 per cent pay increase will work?” he asked.
Mr Devoy welcomed the support offered by the other unions and said that people were realising that if the electrical contractors got away “with tearing up the registered employment agreement for our sector the same can happen in other industries”.
He said it was no accident “that the Construction Industry Federation leader Tom Parlon has been playing such an active role in this dispute and trying to vilify the TEEU because he hopes that if he can dismantle our registered employment agreement he can do the same with the biggest registered agreement of them all – that covering construction.
Ibec director general Danny McCoy said that as thousands of Irish men and women were taking pay cuts to save their own jobs and the jobs of their fellow citizens, “there can be no justification for industrial action by electricians”.
