Serbian workers owed thousands for ESB network job

Serbians working on the ESB’s €3bn network renewal programme are owed up to €40,000 each in pay arrears, it emerged today.

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union discovered that linesmen/electricians recruited by a Belgrade-based firm were earning less than €5 an hour.

After raising the issue with the ESB and the main contractor on the site, Laing O’Rourke Utilities (Ireland) Ltd, the union secured the proper rates for the Serbians who were working at various locations in the North Midlands.

But Energoprojekt Oprema a.d. and Laing O’Rourke have failed to pay the employees, some who have worked on the sites for three years, arrears.

TEEU general secretary Owen Wills said: “We never thought that two weeks after exposing a low-pay Gama-type situation at Moneypoint we would have to go public on a similar, even bigger scandal involving the ESB and one of the largest construction companies in the state.

“The victims are inevitably the most vulnerable members of the workforce.”

The union intervention resulted in the workers’ wages being increased to the basic electrical contracting rates of €17 plus per hour.

The Serbians were being paid "overtime" on weekends of €6.80 per hour, when the rate should have been between €26-37 an hour.

The shortfall for most employees is believed to be more than €315 a week, or €16,410 a year.

Concerns were also raised as to why 50 of the 96 TEEU members with the Belgrade firm failed to return to Ireland after the Christmas holidays.

The union is calling for a guarantee that none of its members will be deported and for all employees, including those who remained in Serbia, to be paid arrears in full.

Last week TEEU Assistant General Secretary Eamon Devoy met some of the workers who feared if the matter was taken any further their work permits would be withdrawn and they would never work in Ireland or Serbia again.