The ESB has agreed to extend the deadline to conclude balloting on a 21 per cent pay rise by its 8,000 employees to July 13th. The original deadline to conclude voting on the Programme for Action on Competitiveness and Transformation (PACT) was June 30th. Failure to meet the deadline would have meant forfeiting the backdating of the first 10 per cent to June 1st and could have led to a dispute.
Contrary to expectations, all the critical groups within the company, such as power station workers and network technicians, concluded deals on extra productivity on time. A group of 330 staff, mainly white collar workers in retail areas, are still in talks. The ESB board decided yesterday to refer the outstanding issues to the joint industrial council, on which management and unions are represented.
Mr Denis Rohan, a senior negotiator for the ESB's largest union, the ATGWU, said the decision by the ESB board to extend the deadline was "a recognition of the efforts people have made to complete the process". He said shop stewards had already begun briefing members on the details.
SIPTU branch secretary Mr Tony Dunne, who represents many of the staff in the power generation division, said the action programme was "a positive deal and we will be recommending acceptance to our members. I believe it will be accepted".
In return for increases in pay, ESB workers are conceding 2,000 redundancies and savings of £100 million (€127 million) a year in operating costs. The previous restructuring deal in 1996 also yielded 2,000 redundancies and staff were given a 6 per cent pay rise for savings worth £60 million a year.
