Electricians to stage multiple blockades in pay rate row

HUNDREDS of electricians are this weekend making final preparations for a blockade of publicly funded development sites in a row over national pay rates.

In a new form of industrial action called ‘rolling protest blockades’, union officials are organising squads of flying pickets to target sites such the Dublin Institute of Technology campus at Grangegorman, which is currently being redeveloped, new faculty buildings at UCD, and work on prisons and hospitals nationwide.

Eamon Devoy, head of the Technical, Engineering And Electrical Union, said: ‘We are planning European-style action to highlight those sub-contractors who are not paying the basic national rates.’

At the centre of the row are union efforts to maintain pay rates of over €19 an hour, which were agreed under a process found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last year.

The Association of Electrical Contractors of Ireland has admitted that some contractors may be paying rates of €10 and €12 an hour. Its executive secretary Chris Lundy acknowledged such a rate is too low and said he wants to see a national rate of between €15 and €17.

‘We are losing out to contractors coming from Northern Ireland who have rates of about £13 an hour,’ he said.

He also accused the TEEU of engaging in ‘bullyboy tactics’ and claimed that any pickets they place on his members’ sites are illegal as there is no current national pay rate in force.