ECA accepts Pay Rise for Electricians

The Irish Electrical Contractors' Association (ECA) has decided to accept the Labour Court's recommendation in the dispute between electricians and their employers.

The court recommended a 4.9% phased increase in pay, which would be phased in by means of a 2.5% increase in September, with the remaining 2.4% introduced on January 1st, 2010.

The Association of Electrical Contractors of Ireland (AECI), which represents around 200 smaller electrical contractors, is due to meet in Portlaoise, Co. Laois on Saturday to consider its response to the recommendation.

Around 10,000 electricians returned to work on Monday after a week-long nation-wide strike that disrupted work at hundreds of construction sites in Ireland. (see also my entries of July 6th & July 13th)

Irish Electricians return to Work

Thousands of Irish electricians have returned to their work this morning after the Labour Court recommended that they should receive a 4.9% pay rise.

The Technical, Engineering & Electrical Union (TEEU), which represents most of the electricians, suspended its week-long strike after holding an executive meeting at their head office in Dublin yesterday.

Last Monday morning at 5.30am the strike began with TEEU pickets (photo left) being placed at hundreds of construction sites all across the country. (see my entry of July 6th)
The industrial action, which was the first major strike in Ireland in years, disrupted the work on many buildings, including landmark projects such as Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport and the new national Football and Rugby stadium on Dublin's Lansdowne Road. And - to the delight of the local Shell to Sea protest group - there were TEEU pickets also at the controversial Shell gas refinery at Bellanaboy in northern Co. Mayo.

There was strong support for the strike from almost all Irish electricians, and also a predominantly positive reaction to it from the media and the general population. Only the leaders of employers' organisations, such as former PD party president and junior minister Tom Parlon (photo right), who became the Director General of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) only weeks after he lost his seat in the Dáil (and with it his ministerial job) in the 2007 general election, were strongly opposed to the electricians' strike. Tom Parlon used the most offensive language of all the industry leaders, calling the TEEU "a bunch of lunatics" in an interview with Pat Kenny on RTÉ Radio 1.

Now that the Labour Court has spoken, the dispute should be settled. But the employers, whose attempt to con the electricians out of an agreed deal and impose a 10% pay cut on top of it, have not yet responded to the Labour Court recommendation. It will be their decision if normality is to return to the industry, or if there will be more industrial action.

The TEEU has warned that it will consider reintroducing the strike if employers do not accept the pay rise. And in my opinion they are quite right to keep this option open. We have seen what the likes of Tom Parlon have done to the country, and now they want to do even more damage by reducing workers' pay, while they themselves go home with large salaries each month. There is already a deep divide between rich and poor in Ireland, and if we let the employers make this rift even wider, all we will get in return is more unemployment and considerable social unrest.

The Emerald Islander

Over 10,000 Irish Electricians on Strike

Today more than 10,000 Irish electricians have followed a call from the Technical, Engineering & Electrical Union (TEEU) and went on strike in a dispute over pay.
The action follows the collapse of talks at the Labour Relations Commission over the weekend.

At 5.30am this morning pickets have been placed on hundreds of construction sites around the country, including some of the most high-profile projects such Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, the Lansdowne Road stadium in Dublin and the Corrib gas pipeline in Co. Mayo.
The TEEU says that the drivers of many trucks have refused to cross the picket lines.

About 200 TEEU members are also picketing the building site of the large Shell gas refinery complex at Bellanaboy, Co. Mayo (right), which has seen many demonstrations in the ongoing dispute over the Corrib gas project for more than seven years.
(for details see my entries of April 28th, July 24th, September 14th, 19th & 24th, November 7th, 2008 and May 10th, 2009)

Electricians say they are looking for an 11% increase in pay, which is due to them since the peak of the economic boom four years ago.
The employers argue that this claim is "unrealistic in the current economic climate" and demand a 10% pay cut from the electricians.

A spokesman for the TEEU explained this morning that the combined affect of the employers' recent demands and their persistent refusal to honour the long agreed 11% pay rise would mean a "de facto pay cut of 21% for electricians".
"This would put an unacceptable burden on Ireland's electricians", he added, "more than twice as much as the 10% pension levy imposed on civil servants."

There have been several efforts to avoid a strike in recent weeks, involving the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission. But since both sides stuck firmly to their positions, no compromise was found and the TEEU proceeded with the strike action it had threatened for some time.

Besides the TEEU, which represents the majority of the country's electricians and engineers, Ireland's largest trade union SIPTU is backing the strikers as well.
In a statement SIPTU's general president Jack O'Connor (left) said that "the electricians must be supported by workers, because the employers' objective of cutting pay reflects the aim of the wealthy to protect their assets and privileged positions at the expense of the working people".

In an already turbulent and recession-hit economy, this strike - the first major industrial action in Ireland for a long time - will certainly increase tensions in employer-union relations. It will also put further pressure on the already hapless and beleaguered government, which has so far kept quiet on the issue in public, but sides clearly with the employers behind the scenes.

It can be expected that both sides will watch carefully how the strike is progressing and what the public reactions will be.
If participation stays as high as it is on day one and there is no substantial public outcry against it, it is only a question of time when the employers will return to the negotiating table with an improved offer. From today's perspective the TEEU and their members seem to be clearly in the stronger position.

The Emerald Islander

Dublin in Traffic Chaos over Bus Drivers' Strike

Dublin Bus services are in disarray and many city routes face severe disruption as a result of an unofficial work stoppage by numerous drivers at the company's bus depots.

The strike action began already yesterday morning, when drivers stopped working in sympathy with a colleague on route 128. This driver was suspended by the management "for refusing to work to a new schedule".

Trade unions had accepted Labour Court recommendations on the bus company's € 31 million cost-cutting measures that included a reduction of the fleet by 120 buses.
Most of the drivers are unhappy with new schedules which were coming into effect yesterday and had been recommended by the Labour Court.

Dublin Bus routes that will have no service at all are the numbers 4 and 4A, 13 and 13A, 17A, 33B, 40, 102, 128, 140, 142, 237, 238, 239 and 270.
There is also disruption to at least ten routes, partly serviced by drivers and buses from the Harristown depot. These are the numbers 37 and 37X, 38 and 38C, 39 and 39X, 41 and 41X, 43 and 70.

The drivers claim that while the broad proposals had been accepted by their unions over a week ago, the working arrangements for drivers on each of the routes affected by the cuts had to be worked out locally before the implementation of the cuts.
They said agreement had been reached on all but one of the routes due to be cut or changed. And when the first driver turned up to work that one route - the 128 - yesterday morning, he refused to operate the new schedule and was suspended, prompting the action by the other drivers at the depot.

There were already serious implications and traffic disruptions all throughout Dublin yesterday. But today, on a normal working day, things are a lot worse. Tens of thousands of commuters who rely on the services of Dublin Bus to get from their homes to their places of work are affected by the bus drivers' dispute. Many did not manage to reach work at all, and many more arrived late, in cases up to four hours late.
Others, who - in anticipation of the bus strike - decided to come into the city by car, had not much joy either. The increase in private cars coming in, together with some bus routes operating irregular intervals, while others operate normal as always and some are shut down completely, is causing a massive traffic chaos, with long tailbacks and traffic jams on all major city streets and ringroads.

But while hundreds of thousands of Dubliners (and the visitors to our capital) are suffering from the various elements of this complete chaos and breakdown of organised inner city traffic, the man responsible is enjoying himself on a day out in the country. Transport Minister Noel Dempsey (right) decided not to bother at all with Dublin today and to stay for another fine day in his rural constituency of Co. Meath, which is not so far from the capital, but far enough to escape the traffic chaos and the angry bus drivers.

Noel Dempsey, one of the most pigheaded and incompetent of Fianna Fáil's politicians, is now in his fourth ministerial job at cabinet level. After being a junior minister and the government 'chief whip' from 1992 to 1994, Dempsey was promoted to the cabinet in 1997 as Minister for the Environment, Heritage & Local Government. After the 2002 election Bertie Ahern moved him to Education & Science, and in September 2004 Dempsey moved again, this time to Communications, Natural Resources and the Marine. In each of these three positions he proved to be a complete disaster. He dreamed up the introduction of electronic voting machines for Ireland in his first cabinet job, and it took more than ten years to decide to get rid of them eventually.
As Education Minister he upset the Curriculum and many teachers, and after his spell in charge of the Marine the department was so wrecked and depleated of resources that it was abolished in 2007 and incorporated into the Department of Transport, to which Dempsey was moved subsequently.

He has absolutely no idea about traffic and transport, and his only real involvement in that matter was the fact that he and his brother bought up most of the land in Co. Meath that was later allocated - and thus bought by the government for a much higher price - to the route of the controversial M 3 motorway.
Since last December Dempsey has been working hard to undermine the already weak system of public transport in Ireland (see my entries of December 17th, 2008 and January 20th, 2009). Part of that process are fare increases and budget cuts for the state-owned transport company Coras Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) and its component parts Iarnród Éireann (Irish Railways), Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus. The most severe measures, including the cuts of bus routes and decommissioning of 120 buses, Dempsey applied to Dublin Bus.

He is the one man solely responsible for today's traffic chaos, and for a lot more damage to this country's transport system. Every day he remains in the cabinet and in charge of Transport, things can only get worse.

The Emerald Islander

Air Traffic Control should be done by the Military

Ireland's air traffic controllers are considering a Labour Court recommendation ahead of a series of meetings today in Dublin, Shannon and Cork. Last night, the Labour Court issued a recommendation that will hopefully resolve the ongoing row over staffing levels, rosters and overtime.

The IMPACT union said there were some positive elements in the recommendation. It will be seeking a meeting with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) today to discuss the implications. Earlier yesterday the controllers called off plans for a 24-hour strike and an official overtime ban.
Labour Court Chairman Kevin Duffy says it is not his role to decide appropriate staffing levels in the air traffic control service. But a number of recommendations have been made to settle the dispute.

Personally I do not understand why this problem has arisen in the first place, and why it seems so difficult to sort it out. Modern Ireland is no longer a poor country, and especially since the "Celtic Tiger" boom civil servants are among the top earners in our society. And the air traffic controllers earn even more than most of the other civil servants, since they receive very generous overtime bonuses. They do have a difficult and very responsible job, no doubt, but so have many other people on much lower pay.

So I think it is not appropriate for the air traffic controllers to keep winging and holding the rest of the population - or at least those who use airlines for travel - to ransom. Their recent threats of strike action and their refusal to fill in for sick colleagues (see my entry from 17 February) is not acceptable at a time when we are told by the government to be prepared for less prosperous times. Sitting in a privileged position and knowing that without them no air traffic can happen, this relatively small group of highly paid specialists is blackmailing the whole country.

It is time to look at the wider picture and sort the problem out, once and for all. Unfortunately the current government is hampered by incompetence and widely occupied with the personal problems of Bertie Ahern. I am also not sure if Noel Dempsey, currently Minister for Transport and as such responsible for the matter, is able and willing to act decisively. What we need is a politician who can call the bluff of the air traffic controllers and get things back to normal.

And if that should appear to be impossible, I propose to take the whole air traffic control system into the responsibility of the Department of Defence, to be administered by the Aer Corps (which does not have a lot to do these days anyway). After all, the national airspace is also a matter of security and defence, and in many other countries the whole matter of air traffic - military and civilian - is exclusively in the hands of the national airforce.

I am well aware that Ireland is not a militaristic country, and that such a step would cause some upset, first and foremost from the air traffic controllers and their union. But it would be worth a step to consider, and if only as a potential stick to threaten the stubborn and arrogant air traffic controllers. (And I am writing this as a member of a trade union.)

We are a small country and an island, and as such we depend on air traffic for our industry, export and import, as well as tourism. It is not acceptable that all this, together with the national interest, stability and prosperity is put into jeopardy by a small group of well-paid people whose greed has driven them to irrational demands. For once I hope someone in the government will act in the national interest instead of wondering how to fill their own pockets most easily.

The Emerald Islander