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Professor Roche on electricians' strike

Date: 10 Jul 2009

Published: Irish Independent

Author: Professor Bill Roche

All-out strike poses huge threat to economic pact

The decision of the parties to the electrical contracting dispute to return to the Labour Relations Commission will raise hopes that one of the most serious and bitter disputes in recent years may be on the path at least to resolution.

Ostensibly, however, the gap between the parties remains wide. The complexity and seriousness of the dispute arise from a number of the issues at play.

First there is the wide gap between the parties on pay. The union directly involved, the TEEU, is pressing the employers to honour a verbal agreement to pay an increase of 5pc due from 2008, based on an agreed pay-fixing method that essentially involves tracking the pay of electricians outside the electrical contracting sector.

To this rise, the union has added a further 6.3pc to cover 2009.

Employers have claimed the 5pc agreement has been rendered outdated by the serious crisis that has developed in construction since last year and crucially, that a significant pay cut is now warranted.

Beneath the surface of the pay dispute, where the gap between the parties remains unusually wide, is a further dispute about the manner in which pay and conditions are fixed in the electrical contracting sector.

Here the union is insistent on maintaining sector-wide bargaining through the mechanism of the registered employment agreement (REA) overseen by the Labour Court. The employer side is divided on this.

Several employer associations are satisfied to maintain the REA in some form, but other employer bodies and groups seek to unravel or undermine sector-level bargaining over pay and conditions.

Opposition to the REA is concentrated mainly among smaller contractors who believe the REA mechanism is too costly and cumbersome to let them compete or remain in business.

Added to these issues is the fact that the dispute had become something of a barometer for the rest of the trade-union movement of how pay-fixing and collective bargaining in general might change.

Galvanised

The pay cuts mooted in the dispute, as well as the pressure on sector-wide bargaining arrangements, have galvanised the support of other major trade unions. The TEEU’s application to ICTU for an all-out picket seems set to succeed, as may the required ballots of members before an all-out strike could take effect. Such an eventuality would lead to one of the most serious disputes in Irish industrial relations for many decades.

 As the strike has taken effect, employer frustration at what has been seen as secondary picketing at some industrial sites has led to several applications for injunctions to restrain the union from picketing and to limit the effects of the dispute.

If the strike continues and widens, more instances of employers resorting to the legal process might be expected.

Therein lies the further danger of some union members or activists ending up in contempt of court. This would ratchet up the dispute and the difficulties of finding a settlement.

The strike is also likely to impinge on the tortuous talks underway, on and off, for seven months between unions, employers and government officials on a national recovery plan and accord on pay.

At one level the strike highlights the importance of there being an overarching framework covering pay and the handling of disputes in the area.

It should in this way steel the resolve of the by now clearly weary union and employer leaders, who are still struggling to reach a new social partnership agreement. At another level, if the dispute develops into a virtual all-out construction strike with major consequences for the already heavily faltering economy, the concept of a general economy-wide accord could be fatally damaged or undone.

If the dispute escalates a wider public debate about issues such as collective bargaining arrangements and worker rights versus the scope for employers to respond to commercial pressures, it could even reignite some of the debate that ensued at the time of the first referendum on Lisbon.

For all these reasons, the stakes are high.

Bill Roche is Professor of Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the School of Business, UCD

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