A dispute between Unite and builder Jones Engineering sparked by legal action against three of the union’s members will go to mediation after the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) intervention.
HA O’Neill, part of the Jones group, recently dropped High Court action against Unite and three shop stewards following a one-day strike in March 2023 over travel allowances.
Both sides accepted an offer of mediation on Tuesday from the OECD, which got involved after Unite and the Builders and Woodworkers International (BWI) filed a complaint with it against Jones and its US owner Cathexis.
The OECD’s national contact point for the Republic, part of the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, ruled that the issues raised required further consideration.
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Unite general secretary Sharon Graham dubbed the decision a “vindication” of its members in Jones, adding that it sent a clear signal to other employers.
The union and BWI claimed the company breached the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Ethical Business Conduct by taking action against the shop stewards.
Jones said on Tuesday that it rejected the union’s allegations and added that the OECD had not found that the company had “acted inconsistently with the guidelines”.
“Facilitated mediation does not imply wrongdoing, but rather that all parties wish a resolution to the matter,” Jones Engineering added.
Failure to comply with OECD guidelines can affect companies bidding for state or publicly funded contracts in member countries.
Along with dropping the court action, which the company has done, Unite wants Jones to compensate its three shop stewards and to enter a facilities agreement with the union, meant to allow greater co-operation between the pair.
Unite also seeks the restoration of the travel allowance, which originally prompted the dispute.
The union and the Mechanical Engineering and Building Services Contractors’ Association, of which Jones is a member, have taken this issue to the Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court in a bid to resolve it across the industry.
Unite members held a one-day strike on March 10th, 2023, at Jones Engineering’s sites in Pfizer in Grange Castle, Dublin, and Intel in Leixlip, Co Kildare.
They were demanding the restoration of a travel allowance to building workers of one hour’s pay, which the industry had dropped with unions’ agreement following the financial crash in 2008.
HA O’Neill sought a High Court injunction restraining Unite and the shop stewards from engaging in further industrial action pending a final hearing of the dispute.
The company maintained that the industrial action was unlawful and that there was no valid dispute between it and Unite.
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the High Court was wrong to grant the injunction as Unite had followed procedures laid down in the Industrial Relations Act, 1990.
However, HA O’Neill subsequently took a separate High Court action against the union and its officials, which it halted in June this year.
In their complaint to the OECD, Unite and BWI claimed that the court proceedings were meant to financially punish the three shop stewards.
However, the company has always rejected that it acted improperly.
Jones said it continued to recognise all unions and to operate within frameworks that have guided industrial relations in its industry for decades.
