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27 July, 2009
Earlier this month 10,500 electricians in Ireland took strike action, seeking an 11 % wage increase, which is three years overdue. The strike affected work at construction sites and factories throughout the country. Pickets were suspended after a week, on 12 July, following Labour Court pay rise proposals. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) was balloting its members for an all-out strike to support the electricians in the lead up to the compromise.
The compromise deal offered by the Labour Court includes a 5 % pay increase. Employer the Electrical Contractors Association (ECA) accepted the agreement, as did the 10,500 member Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU); however another employer the Association of Electrical Contractors of Ireland (AECI) derailed the settlement when they rejected the compromise last week.
If the AECI, an association representing three hundred small electrical contractors does not reverse its decision to reject the compromise package, Ireland’s electricians will take strike action again from 1 September. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan has announced that she will intervene to encourage agreement between employers and the union.
TEEU General Secretary Owen Wills
TEEU general secretary Owen Wills welcomed Tanaiste Coughlan’s intervention, but stressed that the investigation must be handled speedily if strike action is to be averted. If the electricians are forced out on strike again, it is highly likely that an all out strike of other ICTU unions will be launched in the construction industry.
Employers in the dispute had sought a 10 % pay cut for their contractors, but abandoned those demands following highly visible picket lines at international companies, such as Microsoft and Intel.
Element Six, formerly de Beers diamonds, dumped 370 Shannon workers out of work last week, and is only giving redundant workers one week's pay for each year worked. Ireland currently has the worst economic situation of all countries in the euro zone and is set to contract by around 8 % in 2009. Taoiseach Brian Cowen is attempting to garner support for the extremely unpopular spending cuts that have been recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
SIPTU President Jack O'Connor
Union leaders reacted furiously last week when Brian Lenihan, the finance minister, appeared to contemplate a cut in the minimum wage if the rate is "inhibiting job creation in any particular sector". Jack O'Connor, the president of ICEM affiliate Services, Industrial, Professional, Technical Union (SIPTU), called on taoiseach Brian Cowen, to "rein in the hawks" in the Department of Finance who were pursuing "slash-and-burn policies". The government has now called for a two-year freeze in the minimum wage, currently at €8.65 an hour.