ESB unions say strike threat is ‘last resort’ ahead of talks

Retailers seek emergency legislation to block industrial action

The likelihood of industrial action at the ESB before Christmas will be determined by management's "attitude and position" in negotiations on Thursday, according to Unite, the largest trade union in the company.

Unite official Richie Browne said its focus was on avoiding industrial action but “we are prepared to do it on the basis that workers in the ESB cannot sit back and effectively see their pensions go up in smoke and do nothing about it”.

Asked about the retailers’ argument that the move would cost jobs and hurt the economy, Mr Browne said: “The greatest threat to jobs in the economy has been the collapse of consumer demand and anything that cuts pensions further or takes money out of the economy or takes money out of people’s pockets will only have a great impact on jobs.”

Speaking on RTÉ radio, he said “of course we care” about public opinion and view of customers but that the strike measure was “ a last resort”.

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“If writing strongly worded letters to the company or to ministers could have resolved this it would have been done long ago; we tried that to no avail.”

Senior Government ministers have called for a solution to the dispute with Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar describing the strike threat as "unnecessary and unwarranted".

Unite is one of three unions which have agreed to serve strike notice, with industrial action to take place from Monday December 16th if a row over the pension fund cannot be resolved.

Mr Varadkar said no ESB worker’s job, pension or rate of pay was under threat. Instead, it was a dispute over the accounting treatment of a pension fund that was not in deficit.

Asked if the Government would consider the introduction of emergency legislation to stop the strike, Mr Varadkar said he did not know if the Government would go down the route of removing a worker's right to strike. In other countries where such no-strike legislation existed it was usually linked to a dispute resolution mechanism, such as the Labour Court.

Retailers have called for the Government to introduce emergency legislation to prevent unions at ESB from cutting off the power in the run up to Christmas.

Mr Varadkar said it was disgraceful to threaten householders and businesses with power outages at that time of year.

Retail Excellence Ireland, which represents 11,000 stores in the country, said ESB Networks – which transports power to homes and businesses regardless of supplier – was a monopoly that was not being professionally or responsibly managed.

"What is required is Government intervention and emergency legislation," said chief executive of the organisation, David Fitzsimons.

Yesterday Retail Excellence Ireland warned that if the strike went ahead it would help thousands of its members to move from the ESB to a different supplier.

Last night the head of the ESB group of unions Brendan Ogle said that this would make little difference as all energy was transmitted by ESB Networks.

Mr Fitzsimons responded this morning that the threat to switch supplier was post-strike. “No one is going to be able to side-step the strike. It will impact on every business and every citizen in the country.”

“I would have thought late last week it would have been resolved but as time goes on it’s getting more concerning,” he said.

“It’s no good for consumer sentiment. We have dealt with enough crap over the last six years, and a lot of it was from outside the country - for an Irish state-owned company to lead us back to recession, it’s really pretty disgusting.

“It’s quite ludicrous this could not be dealt with in a closed room with mediation. It’s disillusioning.”

ESB has about 88,000 accounts in the small and medium enterprise sector.

The pensions row centres on claims by the unions over the level of a deficit and also over the company switching retirement plans from defined benefit to contribution, meaning workers are not guaranteed a certain level of payment.

Additional reporting: PA