AN industrial dispute has left some residents of the Ballymun flat complex in north Dublin without lifts for six weeks.
The dispute involving Pickerings Lifts and the TEEU union began in early February over concerns that some employees were being selected unfairly for redundancy.
Thirteen engineers are currently on strike and despite pressure from Dublin City Council the company has so far refused to attend the Labour Court in order to find a resolution.
The strike has left the people in Ballymun without lifts in the many eight-storey blocks and the one tower block remaining in the estate.
The hardship and inconvenience is now at a critical stage with 24 out of the 32 lifts completely broken down.
In 2002, the union claims its members supplied a "free breakdown" service to the residents in Ballymun.
However, the union said this was not now possible as the company had taken control of engineers’ vans and switched off mobile phones.
Pickerings Lifts managing director Conor Brennan said that as the workers were on strike the company had to recall their vans for insurance reasons.
According to the TEEU, Pickerings informed the union and the Labour Relations Commission that they could not afford to pay the established industry redundancies to four laid off workers.
The union added that Pickerings Lifts’ most recent company returns have shown a healthy profit and they could afford the normal statutory payment plus four weeks per year of service.
In a statement, Pickerings managing director Conor Brennan said: "The economic downturn has come at a bad time for many Irish owned companies.
"We have taken the challenges head on and have reorganised our company to face the new reality and have achieved significant progress.
"In total we employ 21 staff, of which 13 are union members. We attended a conciliation session at the Labour Court where we explained the realities of the market.
"The union served strike notice and began picketing immediately which included staff solely employed on our Ballymun contract.
"This is one of the significant service contracts that makes up our business. These staff, as well as their union, are well aware that failure to deliver timely service to the Ballymun lifts will result in significant disruption and hardship to the people of Ballymun and will also result in the loss of this business to this company," he added.
TEEU assistant general secretary Arthur Hall said: "The company must stop lying to its employees and attend at the Labour Court, to allow them to make a binding decision on the matter and more importantly, to settle the dispute as soon as possible and thus allow the lifts in Ballymun to be repaired in order to stop the misery that the residents are unnecessarily suffering."
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, March 20, 2010
