Two of the largest unions representing ESB staff have said they are opposed to the Government's plans to sell a minority stake in the energy company.
Siptu said today the Government should seek to re-negotiate the agreement with the EU/ECB/IMF troika, which requires the State to raise €2 billion from the sale of assets, "rather than engage in a fire-sale of strategic state assets".
The union made no reference in its statement to the possibility of industrial action over the Government's plans.
Yesterday the Cabinet agreed in principle to the sale and will consider the matter again when an expert group has reported back by November 30th.
Siptu Energy Sector Organiser, Greg Ennis, said Minister for Communications, Energy and National Resources, Pat Rabbitte, had earlier this year made an important and strategic decision to retain the transmission assets within the ESB which was now being undermined by the latest announcement to sell a minority stake.
"The Minister made a sound strategic decision regarding the retention of the transmission assets with the ownership of the ESB last July in order to ensure that the company would remain a State owned, vertically integrated, utility. It was clearly intended to avoid a repeat of the disastrous eircom debacle."
"We fully understand the enormous implications of the Troika agreement and we also understand why the Minister is uncomfortable with the policy of selling a share of the ESB to private commercial interests.
“But, in our view, it is a bad policy. We also note the Minister's insistence that the proceeds of any such sale should go to job creation but we believe that there is a better way of doing this.
"The Government should seek to re-negotiate the Troika agreement so as to obviate the need to get into a fire-sale of a minority stake in this highly profitable company which has generated huge dividends over the decades while never receiving a subsidy from the State."
The Unite trade union, the union is one of five in the ESB group of unions, has said it will ballot its members for strike action to oppose the proposal.
Mr Rabbitte refused to say how much money the Government hoped to raise through the sale. “We are not going to put it up on eBay next week. There is a process that has to be completed,” he said last night.
Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said today he was “absolutely” certain members of the union would support industrial action.
The issue had been explained to union members during a “roadshow” around the State, Mr Kelly said. “We got a clear decision from all the representatives of all the unions on July 23rd which says if the Government go in the direction they say they are going we will ballot for industrial action.”
Mr Kelly said the union did not accept there was a “diktat” in the IMF-EU bailout agreement that the ESB had to be sold off. He said the agreement was that the sale of State assets was one of the areas to be “looked at” but that nothing was written in stone.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Kelly said his members were not looking for "something special". They were defending what they had and were entitled to the wages that had been negotiated.
Mr Rabbitte yesterday expressed the hope that the proceeds would not merely be used to write down the country’s debt but that a share of it would be used for reinvestment in the economy to create jobs.
The Minister said this issue would have to be negotiated between the Government and the EU-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank troika.