Talks were continuing last night at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in a bid to avert industrial action at the country's largest power station, Moneypoint in Co Clare, which is due to commence today.
Shop stewards representing the various trade unions at Moneypoint yesterday agreed to support a picket which the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) is planning to place at the plant in a dispute over the payment of wages and job security for 200 Polish workers.
The workers were employed by a Polish sub-contractor on a major environmental refitting project at the plant which was commissioned by the ESB.
The TEEU said that pickets will be placed at Moneypoint from 7.00am today unless progress was made in the dispute over the Polish workers who, it said, had not been paid for six weeks and had been told that they now had no jobs.
It is understood that the other unions at the plant have agreed that there would be orderly closure of the power station if the dispute went ahead.
A spokesman for Eirgrid, the independent electricity transmission system operator, said last night that Moneypoint was the largest single power station in the country and that it was responsible for about 14 per cent of total "dispatchable" power generation.
The spokesman said that if Moneypoint went off-line that "it would have an effect on the security of supply". He said that while it was difficult to quantify, it was estimated that the effect would be small. He said that power supplies would be ensured for essential services such as acute hospitals.
The TEEU and representatives of ESB management and two contractors engaged in the Moneypoint refit project resumed at the LRC yesterday. Four hours of talks held under the auspices of the LRC in Ennis on Tuesday failed to resolve the dispute.
Representatives of Lentjes, the German-based company which is the main contractor on the Moneypoint project, were not at the talks in Ennis but did attend the LRC hearing in Dublin yesterday.
Lentjes was hired by ESB International as the main contractor for the €380 million environmental refit operation at Moneypoint. The 200 Polish staff work mainly as scaffolders and welders for a Polish firm, ZRE Katowicz, which was engaged as a sub-contractor by Lentjes.
ZRE's contract was terminated at the end of last week by Lentjes.
The TEEU, which represents the Polish workers, said some had not been paid since the beginning of September. It also said they had been told last Friday they no longer had jobs. The ESB has said it has met all its obligations to the workers, including proper and timely payments to the main contractor, Lentjes.
TEEU general secretary designate Eamon Devoy said that whichever company was technically responsible for the plight of the workers, the ESB and the two contractors all shared a moral responsibility for what had happened.
"To let any of them off the hook would be simply to reward bad behaviour. This is the third time we have found vulnerable migrant workers treated as disposable human assets by the ESB and its contractors as soon as someone's already generous profit margins are affected.
"There have to be consequences for this type of socially irresponsible behaviour," Mr Devoy said last night.
If the TEEU places pickets at Moneypoint today the official notice period of seven days will not have expired and the union could be putting at risk its immunity under trade union law from being sued by employers.