Roadstone workers strike for 5th day over bonus dispute

More than 300 workers at Roadstone Woods are in their fifth days of strike action across the country following a breakdown in negotiations over bonus pay.

Unions members put up their pickets on Monday morning this week on 20 sites nationally. The company is part of the major multinational CRH group.

Two unions are involved, Siptu, which represents the majority of workers, and TEEU.

Siptu organiser David Lane said the action would continue until “ a fair resolution of the dispute is achieved”.

“Management wish to reduce the payroll cost by € 10 million over the next five years, this is against the background of a cut of € 6 million from payroll costs in 2012,” he said.

“Due to the unrealistic demands of management these talks broke down at the weekend.”

Mr Lane said unions wanted an immediate restoration of an 89 per cent cut in bonus earning, which was cut two years ago as part of cost reductions.

“The pay cut which is currently being proposed by management would take €20,000 from the lowest paid workers over the next five years,” he said.

“Our members could not sustain such a loss against a background of the increasing costs of indirect taxation, hence their decision to embark on strike action.

A spokesman for Roadstone Woods said the company would not be commenting as this point.

Separately, members of the plasterers’ union Opatsi demonstrated at a building site in Dublin over what they claimed was the “exploitation and discrimination of building workers and the continued refusal of sub contractors to employ qualified plasterers and apprentices”.

“Companies have and are refusing to employ qualified plasterers in the industry whilst favouring unskilled workers with no qualifications,” a spokesman said.

“This is impacting on the apprenticeship system which is recognised worldwide and will soon be defunct if this present behaviour of these contractors and builders is allowed to continue.”

He said members who had been forced off building sites over the last number of years had been left with two choices - to change the industry they worked in or to emigrate.

Opatsi general secretary Billy Wall said most had chosen the latter.

“Highly skilled craftsmen who have serviced this industry over many years are now being kept outside the gates of building sites and if this is where contractors are going to keep them, this is where they will find them.”

He also expressed concern that employers were declaring workers to be self employed so as to circumvent employment legislation.

“Craftsmen have been forced to open companies just to get a wage as employers refuse to employ them as employees, this is wrong in every sense as it means that, employment legislation ends at the gates of a building site.”

The nnion has written to the Ministers for Social Protection and Education but said it had yet to receive a response from either department.