Security industry officials meet to try to break impasse over pay deal

Representatives of employers and workers involved in the security industry will meet on Monday to consider how to progress the issue of pay for about 16,000 security guards who were to benefit from an employment regulation order (ERO) which three companies in the sector are seeking to judicially review in the High Court.

The meeting is part of a process started in mid-November involving industry groups, companies and unions that participated in the original Joint Labour Committee (JLC) which agreed the terms of the now stalled ERO.

Under it, those working in the area would have received a raise to their hourly basic rate of 85 cent, taking it to €12.50 an hour on August 29th with a further 40 cent per hour increase due on February 1st.

The majority of security guards last received a pay rise on June 1st, 2019, when the final phase of the old ERO took effect. Two attempts to replace it have stalled since following interventions by the firms Top Security, Morbury and Las Security.

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Announcing his intention to sign the ERO in law on August 3rd, Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail Damien English, described the agreement as an example of how well the State-backed negotiating mechanism could work.

Three weeks later, however, the three firms obtained an interim injunction preventing the signing of the order with the court told that the companies viewed the JLC system as mainly being of benefit to the sector’s larger players, that its agreements were anti-competitive and that increased wages would encourage more clients to seek technology-based alternatives that would result in fewer security guards being employed.

All of the assertions are disputed by Siptu’s sectoral organiser, Ed Kenny, who says it is unreasonable that a group of workers, many of whom worked throughout the pandemic, are set to go four years without a pay rise at a time when the cost of living is increasing significantly.

As it is, he says, “we are going to have a situation from January 1st where a well-trained and professionally qualified security guard is only going to be on 35 cent more an hour than the minimum wage”. The minimum wage is due to rise from €10.50 to €11.30 in the new year.

Mr Kenny says he cannot understand why the Minister has not been proactive in fighting a case that has so far been mentioned twice on an ex parte (one side only) in the High Court and is listed for mention again on December 20th with no indication of when it might be resolved.

In the meantime, an informal group of workers, Security Officers United (SOU), frustrated by the lack of progress on the ERO and arguing for a €15 basic rate, have been staging occasional pickets at sites where the companies involved in the case have contracts including a recent one outside the Department of Transport. Both the union and SOU are planning a protest for outside the Dáil this Saturday.

“I think the fact that Damien English gave such clear notice to the employers of his intention to sign the ERO and the State then did not, at the time of the injunction, enter any legal defence, did not contest the injunction in any way, shape or form, I think that’s very telling,” says Labour Party Senator Marie Sherlock, who does not believe the case, as it stands, will be resolved before the middle of next year.

Ms Sherlock is one of a number of Opposition politicians, including Sinn Féin’s Paul Gavan and Paul Murphy of People Before Profit/Solidarity to have expressed support for the workers. Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton also sought an update on the progress of the case in a parliamentary question recently and highlighted the value of the ERO system. “This is a good model that has worked and can work in the future,” he said.

Top Security, which is linked to Morbury, Las Security and Mr English were all contacted for a response. A spokesman for the Department of Enterprise said it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing court case.