Electricians and employers to have exploratory pay talks

THE LABOUR COURT has called electricians and their employers to exploratory talks over a new pay agreement which could cost the employers more than €4 million in back payments.

The talks could have implications for hundreds of thousands of other Irish workers who are also subject to registered employment agreements. About 10,000 electricians were due to receive a €1.05 per hour or 5% pay increase as proposed last April.

That increase was agreed by union representatives as well as the two long-established employer associations in the industry, the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) and the Association of Electrical Contractors in Ireland (AECI).

However, the National Electrical Contractors of Ireland (NECI) and a non-aligned group claiming to represent more than 1,000 contractors sought an injunction last June preventing the Labour Court from hearing arguments on the pay increase until their full legal challenge was heard.

They said they were not represented in the negotiations on the new agreement and their members could not afford the rise. Last week the injunction was lifted as the contractor representatives said they could not give an undertaking to pay damages if they lost the case.

However, the matter remains subject to a judicial review which, if successful, would challenge the validity of registered employment agreements and therefore affect hundreds of thousands of workers.

NECI said it has been invited to a Labour Court hearing on the agreement on November 17. It said it would tell the court:

nThe current proposed 5% pay increase agreed by the minority employer bodies is not sustainable.

nThe agreement is invalid in the first place because the employer bodies are not substantially representative as required by law under the 1946 Industrial Relations Act.

“NECI has called for a 12-month pay pause in our sector to enable industry and general customers to find their feet and not this unsustainable 5% wage increase, negotiated by the TEEU union and by the other two trade associations,” said an NECI spokesman.

“However, the proposed draft pay increase under the national pay talks looks destined to fail. This proposed increase, which was to be over 21 months, is less than half what electrician representatives had agreed for the ECI over a 12-month time scale.”