The executive of the Construction Industry Federation is meeting today to review the crisis caused by the month-long scaffolders' strike. A general meeting of scaffolders is planned for Liberty Hall this afternoon.
About 1,000 workers have been laid off and further lay-offs are expected at the end of this week. Major building sites such as Croke Park, the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, the Four Seasons hotel in Ballsbridge, Smithfield and Citibank have closed.
There were hopes that informal discussions between leaders of the scaffolders and some of the main contractors might provide a basis for a return to work.
However, the CIF and its scaffolding division, NASAC, have both opposed any attempts by individual scaffolding firms and the scaffolding societies in Dublin, Cork and Limerick to reach local agreements.
Various formulas have been put forward, including increases in the hourly rates of up to 65p an hour and attendance bonuses of between £1 and £2 an hour.
The CIF and NASAC are afraid the scaffolders' societies might use such deals to reinforce their case for a national agreement which would generate knock-on claims by thousands of other construction workers.
Yesterday, SIPTU construction branch secretary Mr Eric Fleming said that the CIF had allowed local bargaining to meet claims from craft workers and crane drivers in the industry. It should be prepared to do the same with scaffolders, who were amongst the lowest-paid building workers, he said.
"The employers have acknowledged the effectiveness of local agreements in yielding huge increases in pay for productivity elsewhere, but are blocking such an approach in this dispute," he said. "All the approaches to date have been made by the trade union side."
The CIF director general, Mr Liam Kelleher, said the primary obstacle to resolving the dispute was that the scaffolders had embarked on unofficial action. "Negotiations cannot take place while the pickets are there," he said. "They are in breach of all accepted procedures and Partnership 2000.
"If the pickets ended it would be much easier to sit down and discuss the issues. We might not agree on all of them but we would be prepared to explore them from the Labour Relations Commission, the JIC (Joint Industrial Council) or anywhere else."