ESB unions cancel strike for talks on share deal

A MAJOR restructuring of the ESB could be on the cards as the company prepares to enter talks on handing over an increased share of the State asset to its 8,000 employees.

A planned strike was called off yesterday after senior union officials accepted the talks as part of a package of proposals aimed at resolving a dispute which had threatened the country with blackouts from Monday.

A full meeting of the ESB Group of Unions, which includes the ESB Officers Association, SIPTU, ATGWU, the TEEU and Amicus, will be convened on Monday to formally accept the proposals.

ESB management and the unions are expected to meet with the Labour Court Thursday to schedule negotiations, which are likely to continue for months.

The proposals, put forward by the National Implementation Body (NIB), the group which ensures national pay agreements are honoured, keep on the table all the contentious issues which led to the strike threat. They include an 18% pay claim, workers’ concerns over a 500 million deficit in the company pension fund and, most significantly, the demand for an increase in the employees’ share in the utility from 5% to 20%, a move that would give the workers a 600m stake in the company.

Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Dermot Ahern had previously said such a change in ownership could only happen in the context of ESB being privatised, which he firmly ruled out.

Group of Unions general secretary Paddy Reilly said he welcomed the minister’s commitment to keeping the company in public ownership, but said it was wrong to suggest a sell-off was the only way to increase the employees’ stake.

“It happened in Aer Lingus where the workers have 14.9%, so there is a precedent,” said Mr Reilly. “The most important thing is that we now have a process which can address all the problems that we had, including the potential to enhance our equity shareholding, and that process has been accepted by all sides.”

Tony Dunne, general secretary of the ESB Officers Association, whose 2,300 members were due to walk out Monday, said it was the inclusion of the shareholding issue in the negotiations that had allowed his members to call off the strike.

He said his members would be willing to scale down their pay claim and take a long-term view on the resolution of the pension difficulties if a reasonable shareholding offer was made. ESB management welcomed the deferral of the strike.