Union faces strike over redundancies

AMID pay talks and perceived “races to the bottom” in industry standards and pay, one would expect the trade union movement to be showing a “united” front these days.

Yet from tomorrow, the Building and Allied Trades’ Union (BATU) is facing the prospect of strike action and pickets by fellow Irish Congress of Trade Unions member Unite. The dispute is over the selection of two full-time officials at BATU for redundancy. Those officials, while representing the building trade union, became members of the general trade union in the weeks before the redundancies were announced.

It is understood that a voluntary package — described by BATU sources as “generous” — had been offered to the two officials, but was rejected, as they do not accept that they should have been selected for redundancy.