National pay policy faces a major challenge in the construction industry. The Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU), which represents bricklayers and carpenters, has begun lodging local claims for £1,000 a week basic pay. The rate negotiated under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) is for £380 a week, although bricklayers are earning over £800 for a 39-hour week through locally negotiated productivity deals.
BATU is due to meet the Construction Industry Federation next Friday to discuss pay rates. It also has a claim in for early retirement at 55. However, talks last Friday to resolve a number of unofficial disputes that have flared in Dublin over pay and pensions broke down after a few minutes. The CIF has warned that it will not meet the union next week unless workers abandon their unofficial action.
The chief executive of the CIF, Mr Liam Kelleher, has written to the Taoiseach expressing concern at the union's attitude. "In recent years BATU has failed to live up to any agreement made with it," he said. "The union has refused to accept the PPF agreement and is in breach of the registered agreement [for the construction industry] and the 1990 Industrial Relations Act."
He added that the £41 billion National Development Plan and the Government housing target of 50,000 new homes a year could not be met, "if we are to have ongoing unofficial strikes, work stoppages and go slows, and unions looking for pay increases every six months". He also pointed out that BATU's general secretary, Mr Paddy O'Shaughnessy, was a member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions executive and "fully aware of all agreements reached with ICTU and other unions over the years".
Mr O'Shaughnessy accused the CIF of using local pay claims for up to £1,000 a week as "a cover to avoid meeting us nationally to discuss pay and the early retirement issue". He said pay claim disputes, and another one at P.J. Hegarty over pensions, were local issues.
It was the dispute about pensions at Hegarty that caused the breakdown in talks on Friday. The employers demanded that unofficial pickets be lifted as a precondition to serious negotiations. However, BATU insisted that Hegarty produce data, confirmed by the CIF pension scheme, that all company employees' pension contributions were up to date.
A spokesman for the CIF said yesterday that all contributions were up to date but because of an administrative error the benefits had not been allocated to the individuals concerned.
The spokesman also denied the £1,000 pay claims were localised because, if conceded, they would lead to other claims.
Mr O'Shaughnessy made no apologies for having the best-paid workers in the industry.