Striking electricians vowed to keep up their all-out stoppage on its third day, Wednesday, as union leaders re-entered talks with employers regarding a pay row.
Talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) aimed at ending the dispute adjourned without agreement in the early hours of yesterday.
As no agreement has been reached, pickets by Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) members were yesterday in place on building sites around the country.
The LRC asked the parties to reflect and is contacting them to assess whether there is any value in reconvening the talks.
It said yesterday that the position of the parties on the issue of pay makes an agreement impossible.
It believed that a reasonable level of compromise on all sides would produce agreement but added that such compromise was not available during the 14 hours of talks.
However, the LRC said that it is confident that a proposed 10 per cent pay cut and changes to the registered agreement can be removed as obstacles to an overall agreement.
The two sides had met at the LRC for the third time on Wednesday morning in an attempt to resolve the long-running row over pay rises.
TEEU General Secretary designate Eamon Devoy agreed to the talks by calling for a meaningful offer from employers.
‘We are doing so out of deference to the Tánaiste and in the public interest,’ he said on Tuesday night.
‘We are willing to engage in meaningful talks with the employers.
‘However, for these to take place will require the employers putting a meaningful offer on the table, which has not happened to date.’
The Dublin government stopped short of forcing the two sides to negotiate but Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said they had been ordered back to restart talks.
Going into the negotiations, the TEEU said it was hoping to reach a peaceful outcome today, but the dispute would be settled by force if necessary.
The strike was in its third day on Wednesday.
The striking electricians are seeking an 11 per cent pay increase, which has been due for a number of years.
Electrical contractors are looking for a 10 per cent pay cut.
Devoy said that his members are looking for the pay that has been withheld from their members since 2007, and most of the TEEU’s 10,500 members were on the picket line.
SIPTU’s National Construction Sector Organiser Eric Fleming has said that his union will complete its ballot on the electricians’ request for an all-out ballot by the end of next week.
‘As by far the largest union in construction, our involvement in the dispute will see a serious escalation’, he said.
‘Already we are aware a lot of our members are not passing the TEEU pickets.
‘They are determined to protect the agreements we have and stop the employers implementing large scale pay cuts across the board.
‘A deal is a deal and employers cannot walk away from their commitments whenever they feel like it.
‘Because of the urgency of the situation we will be completing our ballots by the end of next week.’
The TEEU’s Devoy said that the TEEU would still be proceeding with its application for an all-out picket from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and that its industrial action would continue in the meantime.
The TEEU has welcomed the support it received on Tuesday evening from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions when all the affiliates likely to be affected by the application of an all-out picket agreed unanimously to recommend support in ballots of their members.
TEEU General Secretary Owen Wills said: ‘Our pickets have already made an enormous impact on the electrical contracting and construction sectors and this will be multiplied many times over once the all-out pickets are put in place.
‘Workers have not been fooled by the media campaign of the employer organisations.
‘They realise that if those employers succeed in imposing cuts on us now, they will be next in line.
‘There can be no question of our members, or other workers, accepting the proposition that when times are good the employers can engage in a profits binge and, having squandered the wealth, can turn around and tell workers to foot the bill when times are bad.
‘This decision by our fellow trade unionists in the ICTU means workers are no longer willing to be the fall guys for everyone else.’
Earlier, Jack O’Connor, General President of SIPTU and incoming President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, welcomed the commitment of Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore at the ICTU conference in Tralee on Tuesday morning that he will ensure workers rights to collective bargaining are enshrined in law if he is elected to government.
‘I welcome as enormously significant the statement by Eamon Gilmore here today that in the event of being returned to government, Labour will insist on the entitlement of workers to collective bargaining, which is enshrined in Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, being transposed into Irish law.
‘We very much welcome this statement, especially given the reasonable prospect of Labour being part of the next government, and we note that it contrasts sharply with the current government’s refusal to do so, although it simultaneously supports that very same principle in the Lisbon Treaty.
‘It contrasts as well with their monumental hypocrisy in managing to persuade the heads of government in the European Council to endorse a declaration affording “high priority” to workers’ rights whilst at home they have not yet honoured clear and explicit commitments to eight separate pieces of legislation covering different aspects of the people’s rights at work, including those of the most vulnerable in our workforce.’
• SIPTU members employed at Mr Binman protested in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, on Thursday July 9 over an attempt by the company to impose a drastic 49 per cent pay cut on the workforce.
Mr Binman, which carries out domestic and commercial waste collection in Waterford, Tipperary, Limerick and Kilkenny, has refused to negotiate with SIPTU or to enter talks at the Labour Relations Commission during the now seven-week official dispute.
The forty-one workers with their families and supporters, assembled at the Mr Binman depot on the Waterford Road in Carrick-on-Suir at 11.30am yesterday for a protest and march in the town.
Martin Sheehan, the owner of the Mr Binman company, has defended his employment of non-unionised, migrant labour and admits he is doing it to break the official strike action.
‘The decision to strike and protest has not been taken lightly’, SIPTU Branch Organiser Davy Lane said.
‘Mr Binman has tried to slash wages while increasing the hours of our members’ working week.
‘He has publicly stated that he uses non-union labour to force down wages which are already too low.
‘All we seek is a fair days pay for a fair days work.’
SIPTU represents drivers, helpers and sorters at the company.