Electricians working for street-lighting firm Enerveo have voted overwhelmingly to accept redundancy terms agreed after a week-long strike at the company which has provided services to many local authorities in recent years.
The company had announced earlier this year it would not seek to renew the contracts it currently has in Ireland to provide maintenance services or install new, more energy-efficient street lighting for councils as it intends to exit the Irish market.
Members of the trade union Connect rejected the redundancy terms offered, however. While these were improved, the workers went on strike last month before the two sides reached an agreement during talks at the Workplace Relations Commission.
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“They had been offering two plus two (statutory redundancy plus two weeks ex-gratia for each year of service) but all four weeks were to be capped at the €600 statutory rate,” said Connect general secretary Paddy Kavanagh. “They were also proposing not to count portions of years so if somebody had 10 years and nine months’ service it would be just counted as 10 years but they’ve changed that now.”
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The agreement, he said, provides for the ex-gratia element of the payments to be based on average total earnings over the past full-year.
“That means an increase of 30-35 per cent for some of our members because it was a job where the staff would have taken turns being on call and where there was a bit of overtime.
“It was an amicable agreement in the end, both the company and ourselves were happy with the final arrangement, I think, and judging by the outcome of the ballot our members were clearly happy with the outcome too.”
Connect had about 60 members at the company and some of the staff will continue in their existing positions for more than a year as the company’s work in Ireland is run down and the contracts expire at different times. The first to depart, however, are now due to do so in the coming weeks
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The union, meanwhile, wants the €600 per week cap on statutory redundancy payments reviewed saying the figure was set in 2004 and has fallen well behind average pay rates.
“It certainly became completely apparent during this dispute that the statutory rate needs to be revisited,” said Mr Kavanagh.
“It has been completely untouched for a long time now and when you set it based on a figure rather than a formula that will update it automatically this is what happens. You need to be revisiting it from time to time and that’s now long overdue. We intend to pursue the issue,” he said.
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